Opinion: MAHA’s success depends on timely access to pesticides

By Alexandra Dunn, CropLife America President and CEO

The “Make America Healthy Again” (MAHA) strategy sets forth a bold and important vision: improving access to affordable, nutritious food for every American family. That goal resonates deeply across the agricultural community. After all, a healthy America begins with a healthy food supply, rich in fresh fruits and vegetables, proteins, and grains that sustain our families and communities.

Achieving this vision requires us to collaborate and recognize the practical realities of growing food at scale. That starts with American farmers, who are the bedrock of MAHA. Without their success, the strategy cannot succeed. Yet today, farmers face significant roadblocks that threaten their ability to deliver the abundant, high-quality, healthy food this initiative demands.

To meet MAHA’s goals, farmers need reliable, timely access to crop protection tools. Pesticide products help manage weeds, pests, and diseases, providing essential support to help protect crop yields. The MAHA Strategy acknowledges this need by prioritizing timely pesticide registrations. Unfortunately, that is not happening.

While the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has long been a global leader in science- and risk-based regulation, the pesticide approval system is struggling to keep pace with innovation and the needs of American farmers. The EPA is routinely missing statutory deadlines for pesticide registrations. Even after extensive human health and ecological reviews are completed and show no unreasonable risk, the agency is reluctant to finalize registration decisions. As a result, important products are unavailable to farmers this growing season.

Have we reached an impasse where scientific innovation is advancing, but outdated regulatory processes are holding farmers back? Delays not only slow progress, but they also disrupt planning and investment and raise costs across the food system.

Pesticides are often misunderstood, with perceptions rooted in decades past. Agriculture today is worlds away from what it once was. Just as cars have become safer, medicine more sophisticated and targeted, farming has modernized too, becoming more precise, sustainable, and continually improving.

Modern crop protection tools are one reason Americans can bite into an apple without finding a worm, and can count on fresh, affordable produce year-round. Farmers cannot stop a drought or calm a storm, but they can defend their crops against weeds, pests, and disease. Pesticides are the tools that help bring greater certainty to an inherently uncertain profession, enabling farmers to sustain the harvests that feed, clothe, and fuel our nation.

Our food system is deeply interconnected. Even the administration’s increased emphasis on protein in the new dietary guidelines depends on EPA-approved pesticides to protect the crops that feed livestock. The same innovations that safeguard fruits and vegetables also support the grains and feed that underpin the broader food supply.

In agriculture, timing is everything. Farmers cannot plan a growing season around regulatory uncertainty. When access to critical and proven tools is delayed, the effects ripple through the entire food system – eroding trust, slowing modernization, and threatening yields and livelihoods. The economic stakes are especially high right now, as American consumers remain sensitive to grocery prices. When farmers lose crop productivity to weeds, pests, or disease, lower yields will reverberate through the supply chain, resulting in higher costs at grocery checkout lines that hit lower-income families the hardest.

There is also a global dimension. U.S. agriculture is a $176 billion export engine, but that success depends on keeping American farmers competitive. When producers in other countries gain access to advanced technologies years before U.S. farmers, it puts America at a disadvantage.

The path forward requires a renewed commitment to both the law and the science. EPA must follow statutory timelines and provide farmers with clear, timely decisions. Evidence-based action, not administrative hesitation, is essential.

Getting the regulatory process right, and getting it right on time, is one of the most effective ways to strengthen American agriculture, support our communities, and help make America healthier.

Alexandra Dunn is president and CEO of CropLife America. She served as assistant administrator for the EPA’s Office of Chemical Safety and Pollution Prevention from 2019-2021. She is an active attorney, licensed in four states.