Project Syndicate -- The Bayer Truth About Trump’s Farm and Food Policies Jul 21, 2026 Christopher Marquis

 Project Syndicate 

The Bayer Truth About Trump’s Farm and Food Policies

Jul 21, 2026

Christopher Marquis

A new executive order on regenerative agriculture might seem to suggest that US President Donald Trump’s administration wants to help American farmers. But a closer look at the order and other recent developments reveals a familiar pattern: an unhappy public gets reassuring words, while corporate interests receive tangible support.

CAMBRIDGE—June 25 was a consequential day for American agriculture. In the morning, the US Supreme Court—encouraged by President Donald Trump’s administration—ruled (7–2) that a federal pesticide labeling law precludes state-level lawsuits against the chemical giant Monsanto over its failure to warn users about the cancer risks associated with its weed killer, Roundup. In the afternoon, Trump signed an executive order titled “Advancing Regenerative Agriculture and Strengthening American Farm Resilience,” supposedly to ensure that food in the United States is the “healthiest, most abundant, and most affordable in the world.”

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One might be tempted to read this pair of news stories as evidence of simple hypocrisy. On one hand, the Trump administration actively sought to shield Monsanto’s parent company, Bayer, from liability for the effects of its products—the subject of more than 60,000 lawsuits from sick Americans. On the other hand, Trump and his health and human services secretary, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.—who made a name for himself (as a small fortune) winning lawsuits against pesticide makers like Bayer—promote “regenerative agriculture” under the Make America Healthy Again (MAHA) banner.

But hypocrisy implies inconsistency. Something more strategic—or, as the food-security advocate Anna Lappé put it, Orwellian—appears to be happening here. In fact, the events of June 25 fit into a broader Trump administration pattern: offer reassuring words to an unhappy public and deliver tangible support to corporate interests.

MAHA has become a poster child for this approach. Prior “wins” for the movement include a food-dye ban based on voluntary pledges and drug-pricing orders that request, but do not require, compliance. Meanwhile, the affected industries enjoy deregulation, tax credits, and, now, protection from lawsuits.

Trump’s executive order on regenerative agriculture also fits this pattern. It is marketed as a victory over chemical agriculture. Yet it directs the Environmental Protection Agency to accelerate approvals of new pesticide ingredients, while conducting a review of the pre-harvest spraying of crops with chemicals such as glyphosate, the likely carcinogen in Roundup. (In February, Trump declared the glyphosate supply to be a matter of national security.)

The order contains little of substance about rebuilding soil, diversifying crops, and reducing reliance on chemical fertilizers and pesticides—what regenerative farming means to its advocates. The lone directive that supports the practice instructs the Department of Agriculture (USDA) to “maximize the funding” of a pilot program that is already in place.

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The USDA’s final Regenerative Feedstock Rule—also announced on June 25—is another example of this tactic. The rule ties regenerative practices like planting cover crops and reducing tillage for corn, soybeans, sorghum, and canola to an existing clean-fuel tax credit. By making the crops that become ethanol and biodiesel look greener on paper, it will enable fuel producers to claim bigger tax credits. By the USDA’s own count, 68% of corn farmers already implement “at least one regenerative practice.” The new rule thus amounts to nothing more than a subsidy for the status quo. Predictably, the ethanol and biodiesel lobbies, along with the corn and soybean associations, applauded it.

Whatever the Trump administration says, its record leaves no doubt about its priorities for agriculture. In a matter of 18 months, it has terminated roughly $1 billion in programs to help schools and food banks buy from local farms; canceled the $3.1 billion Partnerships for Climate-Smart Commodities (the largest-ever federal investment in regenerative practices); eliminated a program helping young and historically excluded farmers acquire land; and shed roughly one-fifth of the USDA workforce.

Of course, the Trump administration did not invent the practice of saying one thing and doing another. I have spent much of my career studying whether corporate-backed sustainability policies are credible—and found that they usually are not. Environmental claims by the powerful, whether corporations or politicians, largely amount to greenwashing.

Such rhetoric is not totally worthless. Presidential attention confers legitimacy, and the movement for regenerative agriculture has not yet had much visibility. More concretely, the feedstock rule creates the first federal system for measuring the climate impact of farming practices, and some farmers will earn real premiums for useful approaches.

But even here, the details cut against what would typically be considered regenerative. Large commodity farms that skip plowing typically control weeds by spraying more herbicide, which means that rewarding “no-till” practices may actually deepen dependence on glyphosate.

Moreover, research has shown that symbolic gestures can undermine progress by quelling demand for real change. Unverified claims about sustainability often survive until auditors, activists, or courts force word and deed back into line.

To have a positive impact, words must be matched by standards to which a company or a farm can credibly be held. “Organic” means something because it is defined in law, certified, and audited. If a farm fails to meet the standards, it loses the label. “Regenerative,” by contrast, has no statutory definition, no associated certification, and no consequence for not meeting the standards. This is why some of the world’s biggest pesticide and food companies—Bayer, Nestlé, PepsiCo, and Cargill—have embraced the term.

A serious regenerative-agriculture policy is not difficult to describe. Civil society has already done so. The Regenerative Organic Alliance—founded by the Rodale Institute, Patagonia, and the organic personal-care-product manufacturer Dr. Bronner’s—certifies farms that, in addition to being organic, meet audited standards for soil health, animal welfare, and farmworker conditions.

The US needs a federal institution to establish a legal definition for regenerative agriculture, with clear standards, verification mechanisms, and penalties for falling short. It also needs to restore local food and conservation programs and uphold people’s right to sue chemical companies when regulators fail. Unfortunately, despite some big talk from the Trump administration, Americans are headed in the opposite direction.

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Christopher Marquis

Christopher Marquis

Writing for PS since 2025

4 commentaries

Christopher Marquis is Professor of Management at the University of Cambridge and the author of The Profiteers: How Business Privatizes Profits and Socializes Costs (PublicAffairs, 2024).

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