Some very familiar faces to No-Till Farmer and the National No-Tillage Conference were on hand as President Trump signed an executive order directing U.S. policy to promote advances in precision farming and regenerative agriculture. 

Jonathan Lundgren, founder of the Ecdysis Foundation, along with Clarksville, Ind. no-tiller Rick Clark, Bluffton, Ga., rancher Will Harris and Foxholm, N.D. farmer Brendon Bock were on hand last Friday as Trump signed the order, which said funding should be “significantly increased” for regenerative agriculture practices, research and education.

Lundgren said in a LinkedIn post that some of the data and experiences generated from projects at the Ecdysis Foundation were a “major factor” in Trump signing the order. 

Earlier this year, Lundgren was a keynote speaker at the National No-Tillage Conference as he laid out how data from more than 1,000 farms shows regenerative practices — such as reduced tillage or no-till, cover crops, rotational grazing, diverse crop rotations and the like — can be profitable. 

“Amidst a small group of HHS, USDA and Farm Bureau (representatives), a battle ensued against the resistance waged by conventional agriculture to the signing of this order,” said Lundgren, a former USDA pollinator researcher who more than a decade ago alleged his firing by the agency was retaliation for his research linking neonicotinoid insecticides to declining monarch butterfly populations.

Trump ordered USDA Secretary Brooke Rollins to “maximize” the funding for the agency’s new Regenerative Pilot Program and to find ways to expand its reach using, “existing authorities to create public-private partnerships that can bring new capacity to producers interested in adopting regenerative practices.”

The executive order does not provide any timeframe for increased investment, although $700 million has already been authorized for the pilot program. 

Lundgren believes the order will engage the administration’s resources into supporting regenerative agriculture on an expanded scale, “as well as mitigating the human health costs of associated with conventional farming practices.

“The hope is that this will also inspire Republican legislators into supporting regenerative initiatives. We are cautiously optimistic that this first step will support our bottom-up efforts to change the culture of food in the U.S. and globally.”

Rollins said the NRCS has this year, through the pilot program, obligated 1,064 contracts through the Environmental Quality Incentives Program and 427 contracts through the Conservation Stewardship Program. The NRCS has completed 67,030 whole-farm conservation plans on 49 million acres, she said.

“What impressed us most was how these farmers are leading by example,” Rollins said in a video statement with Health & Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. “Collectively, they have influenced the adoption of regenerative practices across tens of millions of acres nationwide. They are showing that healthy soils, resilient farms and prosperous rural communities go hand in hand.”

Ironically, Trump signed the order came on the same day the U.S. Supreme Court handed Bayer a victory in the Durnell vs. Monsanto case. The Justices ruled the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act (FIFRA) expressly preempts state-law failure-to-warn claims.

Failure-to-warn lawsuits, alleging labels on Roundup did not warn users of the safety risks, have been filed across the U.S. the last several years. That has already cost Bayer billions of dollars via court verdicts and settlements over allegations surrounding the use of Roundup. 

Trump tied the signing to the establishment of the Make America Healthy Again Commission to address childhood chronic disease and work with farmers to ensure U.S. food is the “healthiest, most abundant and most affordable in the world.”

Kennedy has said farmers and ranchers are “essential partners” in that. 

The order also directs EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin to prioritize registration of alternative crop protection tools and review data on pre-harvest desiccation uses to ensure alignment with safety and labeling standards.

Trump directed Zeldin to review data for registered pre-harvest desiccation uses and ensure there is alignment with safety and environmental standards, “including accurate labeling of chemical products.”

The order also directs Kennedy’s agency to speed up development of a research and evaluation framework for cumulative exposure across chemical classes that are regulated by statute in the food supply.  

The goal is to develop new methodologies, “to promote scientific understanding of human health and environmental risks of chemical contaminants in the food supply and addressing these risks for greater food security and safety.”