Steve Bruere and Dr. Dave Muth: What to Think About MAHA and Land Policy Talk
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Farm policy has always been influenced by politics. But the growing Make America Healthy Again (MAHA) movement is introducing a new set of questions that could have lasting consequences for American agriculture, from the chemicals farmers use to the way consumers think about the food they buy.
For farmland owners and investors, the implications could reach well beyond the grocery store.
“When I was a 10-year-old boy and my uncle was in the White House, chronic disease among American children was two percent. Today, it’s 66 percent,” U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. told members of Congress during his Senate confirmation hearing in 2025. “The cost of chronic disease to our country when my uncle was president was zero. There were not even treatments for chronic disease at that time.”
RFK, Jr. laid out what he felt were the costs of the country’s declining overall health. “The cost (of chronic disease) is $4.45 trillion and is bankrupting our country. 77 percent of American kids can’t qualify for military service. 38 percent of teens, according to NIH’s last report, which was three weeks ago, 38 percent are diabetic or pre-diabetic,” he said.
He added, “The ship is sinking, and nobody’s paying attention to it.”
How Could MAHA Affect Agriculture?
MAHA could impact how food is grown and what food is produced. It could affect the food distribution system. It could focus additional scrutiny on high-fructose corn syrup, seed oils, fertilizers, pesticides, farm financing, and land ownership.
Dr. Dave Muth, vice president of Peoples Company, sees a fundamental shift underway in the relationship between consumers and the agricultural industry.
"People just want to know more about where their food comes from," Muth told American Farmland Owner.
Muth maintains that modern agriculture has built an efficient system that delivers food at competitive prices. But that efficiency, driven in large part by economies of scale, may increase separation between the origin of the food and the final destination.
"In the commoditized systems that we have that give us a lot of economic competitiveness, scale wins, right?" Muth said. "And that creates a little bit of distance between a consumer and their food, and then the various supply chains that ultimately get it there."
How MAHA could affect supply chains
The question now is what happens when consumers begin demanding more information about those supply chains.
For farmers, that could mean increased scrutiny of agricultural chemicals, new regulatory requirements, and changing expectations about how food should be produced. Those changes could eventually influence production costs, farm profitability, and the value of agricultural land.
During his confirmation hearing, RFK, Jr. said, “MAHA will not succeed without the cooperation and partnership of agricultural producers, of farmers and ranchers across this country. I was a 4-H kid. I grew up working on ranches, and I’ve worked for years representing farmers in various forms of litigation.”
He added, “Thomas Jefferson said that American democracy is rooted in tens of thousands of independent freeholds owned by farmers. We are losing farmers today, and we can’t afford to lose a single farmer. And on my watch, I do not want to lose a single farmer.”
Why Are Farm Chemicals a Focus for MAHA?
Muth said agricultural chemicals have become a particularly contentious issue, with questions surrounding both their use and the regulations governing them.
"What's going to be interesting is how does that unwind?" he said.
The debate surrounding glyphosate and related legal liability issues illustrates the uncertainty facing the industry. Muth described the current environment as "a little bit of a melting pot," with competing interests and political perspectives still taking shape.
What makes the moment particularly significant is that concerns about food and health are not confined to one political party or demographic.
Muth believes consumers are increasingly aligned around a desire for greater transparency, even when their expectations may conflict with established agricultural practices.
"In many cases right now, it's not necessarily well aligned with quote unquote ‘big ag,’" he said.
For farmland owners, that disconnect deserves attention. Agricultural land values ultimately depend on the income the land can generate, and changes in production practices, input costs or market demand can influence that income.
But the potential impact of the MAHA movement extends beyond agricultural practices. It also highlights how quickly public perception can influence political decisions affecting landowners.
Who owns American farmland?
Peoples Company President Steve Bruere sees another challenge emerging from the current political environment: the speed at which social media narratives can become the foundation for public policy.
Bruere said he regularly hears concerns about foreign ownership of American farmland, including questions about whether Chinese investors are buying up agricultural land across the country.
"They are," Bruere said when asked whether people are concerned about the issue. "In fact, whether it's at Thanksgiving dinner or whatever, you know, folks are like, 'Hey, is Bill Gates buying all the farmland in the United States? Are the Chinese buying farmland?'"
RELATED: This American Farmland Owner conversation laid out recent data on how little farmland China is purchasing in the United States.
The concern, Bruere said, is not simply that people are asking questions. It is that information circulating online can shape public opinion and influence lawmakers before the underlying facts are fully understood.
"You've got these social media messages that the media latches onto, the politicians latch onto, and then it starts leading into policy decisions," he said. "And a lot of it, frankly, just isn't factual."
Bruere worries that the resulting policies could create unintended consequences for agriculture and farmland ownership.
"I think we're going to get some bad policy out of some of these issues," he said.
The connection between the MAHA movement and farmland policy may not always be obvious. One centers on food, health, and agricultural practices. The other raises questions about land ownership, investment, and national security.
But both illustrate how consumer concerns, political messaging, and public perception can influence decisions affecting agriculture.
