Glyphosate debate fuels push for regenerative farming

Welcome everyone to the Mahalo Down. This is Jeff Lauterbach and I'm here. We now have

about, this is about the fourth show underway and what I love about covering the Make America

Healthy Again Movement is there's always a lot going on. There's a lot of detailed features

to write. I was just down in South Georgia writing about Will Harris and White Oak Pastures

who people come from all over, mostly farmers, conventional farmers who are interested in transitioning

to regenerative farming or a current regenerative farmers who want to learn because Will Harris

is one of the pioneers along with Joe Salatin and Dr. Alan Williams in Mississippi, farmers

who are teaching people to move from conventional to regenerative farming. And one part of that

is moving away from chemicals, moving away from chemical pesticides and herbicides. And

my guest today is a very proficient on that and that's her one of her passions. So I'd like

to welcome Kelly Ryerson, who is known as the Glyphosate Guru and she's also the co-founder

of American Regeneration and welcome to the show Kelly. Thank you so much for having me. I'm

happy to be here. So I know and I'm going to post on on the Mahalo Down site on the America

Out Loud Network. And by the way, you're listening to the America Out Loud Network and the Mahalo

Down is part of that network. We're proud to be part of that. And on the Mahalo Down site,

I'm going to be posting an article about you. And I know you have quite the story of how what

I find fascinating about people within the Mahalo Movement is how they got involved in

their passion, whether it be I know it's wide-ranging, it ranges from food, it ranges to autism

awareness. It's just pretty fascinating. And you have one of those stories where

you just kind of happened into it over a period of time and then you just had like a pivotal

moment I know. And so before we talk about the current happenings like the Farm Bill,

State Liability Shields and all things glyphosate, maybe you could tell me a little bit about

your how you got involved in this. Sure, yeah, it is funny. And that's what I love so much about

the Mahalo Movement is that so many people have stories that they're disparate stories but oftentimes

spurred by a situation that really, you know, a desperate kind of situation in public health

and in personal health. And in my case, I had, now a little over 10 years ago, I had an enormous

health crisis that I ended up seeing tons of specialists for and no one really had an answer

for me. But I was having all kinds of symptoms like neuropathy, rashes, eyesight loss,

I was losing hair, I digested problems, I was absolutely exhausted. And it just wasn't adding up

and I just basically lived in my GP's office. And, you know, she was stampored harbored trained

and I had every reason to believe that the answers were sitting in that office and we just would

need to get to the bottom of them and just the routine blood work never showed anything wrong

with me. And so I was just dismissed as well can't really be anything that serious. And this was my

on trend to functional medicine because it was not root cause. It was just, you know, very

superficial what what the doctors were doing. And so I ended up going in self-advocating,

look going to 18 different doctors who many of them at this in the Stanford health care system.

And I ended up layered on many medications, including two any depressants,

benzodiazepine, gabapentin and esteroid, just to try to help. And all of them made me significantly

worse. And so I finally did the reason why they're putting me in all these these psych meds is

because I had to be crazy right to have all of these symptoms and in the preliminary blood work

is showing nothing's wrong with me. And I was desperate and I had two tiny kids and so I'm taking

these medications. So finally I really thought well maybe I am imagining this since an endocrinologist

even told me he thought that my problem was that I was a new mom and I should just get back out

into the workforce. And that was really my issue. I mean I guess that would explain my neuropathy.

And so I finally went to see a psychiatrist, the psychiatrist did preliminary blood work

on me. And he happened to have a vitamin panel on it. And my vitamins came back absolutely

entirely depleted. I had scurvy. I had no B12. I had no D. I mean I was just what you would not

expect in a Western country. And I went back to my GP and I said I think that this has something

to do with my problems. And she said oh no vitamins don't matter. That's really overstated

that vitamins matter. And at that point I thought okay you know I am not a I didn't get a PhD

in biology but I know that basic nutrients matter. And I left that doctor and ended up

going to see a new doctor. That doctor said I think you should try going gluten free while you're

rebuilding yourself with all the vitamins. I did that. I started feeling better much better

and ended up going to a conference at Columbia University where they were talking about

celiac disease and non-celiac gluten sensitivity which is what I have. And they were trying to

get to the bottom of why this gluten sensitivity epidemic is happening. And I for the first time

in my life thought about the farm and went to the microphone and said well I wonder if something's

happening on the field that might be contributing to it. And no one knew because this is like classic

operating in silos where scientists aren't talking to the farmers. And so I asked no one knew

and then someone from General Mills came up to me after the panel presentation and said we'll round

up with the active and radius glyphosate. Roundup is sprayed on our grain before harvest and I

said well I mean that really doesn't sound good. It isn't good because it ended up that it's

in a lot of our food. And I went down that rabbit hole and met with tons of scientists. And next

thing you know the glyphosate cancer litigation was beginning in San Francisco. So I decided I would

go to the courtroom and actually didn't intend on going into the courtroom. I actually went to

protest Monsanto who manufactured Roundup and but no one was there and I ended up being able to

walk right into the courtroom sat down next to it. We're going to remind people when this was because

this is kind of how I mean this has been going on for a while now. It has and who knew we'd still be

talking about it. This was in 2018 was the first glyphosate cancer trial in San Francisco. And

and I was able to sit in the courtroom and blog every every minute of it for the first three

cancer trials and that is how I got to know Bobby Kennedy because he was the litigator in those

trials. And and so that was that was my beginning into this whole pesticide in Maha world.

And that is how you came up with the blog the glyphosate girl at that time.

Yes and the reason why I called it glyphosate girl and I didn't even have my name on it because

I had heard from so many scientists by that point in how frankly scary Monsanto could be with

any of the critics of glyphosate or GMOs. And so I was anonymous for a time but very quickly

then thereafter was not anonymous anymore because they knew who I was pretty fast but their lawyers

all sitting there. So that was 2018 and that was the case of the the man's name escaping the

oh yeah Lee Johnson. Yeah and he was the first person to I'm pretty sure he's the first

person to win a judgment against Monsanto and now it's much room to millions and hundreds of

millions of dollars of judgments against Monsanto. Yeah and who would have known that this would

just kick it off to such an extent. At the time there weren't weren't nearly as many cases and

I can tell you sitting in the courtroom that there's a reason why

bear stands to bankrupt itself with this litigation because the evidence is so damning that

this causes cancer that anyone who would sit there if that's why the jury's all all of them seem

to go for the plaintiff because it's just so egregious this doesn't have a cancer label on it.

This chemical. So obviously with RFK Jr he runs for president and and that his message

really the core because you know I traveled to 28 states covering RFK Jr's presidential campaign

from start to finish and and pretty much everywhere he would talk about corporate capture of

government agencies especially government health agencies and he would talk about the

chronic disease epidemic and the role that diets play in the and chemicals and dies and

and then obviously he would talk about autism and he would talk he'd talk about a wide variety of

subjects but it's interesting that that was the time it seemed to really come to the forefront

the topic about well many of those topics but life has said it's like no one really knew what it was

I think people had heard in the news about Monsanto and you know you'd see in the news that

Monsanto loses this case or that case but and then people who you built a niche with with your

your blog but as a whole I don't think until the last year you're in a half it it has it come to

the forefront like this and how how's that really impacted you and what you're what you've done

over the last year or two and what you're doing now well it is so true that glyphosate was very niche

and if you knew about pesticides I think though if you were into this non-toxic living kind of

world you were probably the most likely to be aware of glyphosate outside of just you know there

were some headlines occasionally I mean very rarely with the roundup bottle and saying oh this might

cause cancer but outside of that understanding the dietary impacts and just how prevalent this

chemical is throughout our body and our entire environment that is new awareness just yeah

thanks really to I think Kennedy running and him repeatedly talking about glyphosate it really

did expand awareness and in along with just talking about glyphosate itself also the whole story

with glyphosate that is emblematic of what happens across the board and all of our regulators

except for now HHS but elsewhere where it's completely captured by the industry that it's

supposed to be regulating so for those who don't know a corporate capture is that means that

companies so in this case Monsanto which is now owned by bear bear would have a heavy hand in

manipulating the results that comes I come out of the agencies because a lot of the people that

work there and particularly in leadership positions oftentimes come directly either from a lobbying

group associated with chemical companies or directly from a chemical company we have a situation

right now at the EPA and I don't think I've ever seen in the years I've been doing it and even

looking at past EPA's I've never seen such a heavy stacking of industry lobbyists that are

indirectly from company that are right now at our EPA and it's really being reflected in the

horrible decisions coming out of it which is an irony now that we have RFK in place and a lot of

people right now are complaining you know about how he said he was going to do something about glyphosate

now look but unfortunately he does not have any any say in what happens over the EPA and under his

his HHS umbrella there's no room to do any pesticide regulation so that is definitely frustrating

but in terms of awareness yes glyphosate suddenly has risen to the public consciousness and I am

thrilled to see it because I I never thought I'd see a day where you know a lot of even mainstream media

has not been willing to talk about it because they're in part funded by and their appetizers are

there in the manufacturer so they've had their hands tied is what they can say but recently

mainstream media has been taking it on except for the Wall Street Journal but other than that it's

really incredible yeah and that's uh what what with glyphosate maybe maybe you can uh the next step

would be if you could explain in a nutshell or maybe as clear as possible because I know it can

be a complicated topic how glyphosate is used because I know it's the most widely used

chemical and in American agriculture but what are the two I well it's I think it's a few main ways

it's used can you explain that yeah so there are a few ways that it's for you so in the the type

that you would historically buy at home depot that is used for landscaping that was only about 10%

of the use of glyphosate of roundup and that actually is now when you this is important to note

because now when you go to the store shelves and you buy the roundup product it actually no longer

has glyphosate in it because of the lawsuits now you might think that that's a good thing except

it's actually not good because they replaced it with chemicals that are 40 times more toxic

than the glyphosate version but they just needed to get glyphosate itself out of the product so

that people that are using it at home and developing cancer couldn't blame glyphosate so I mean

that's just a really unethical thing to do now people are even more poisoned but that's where a lot

of the exposure was coming from from neighborhoods but also it is widely widely used throughout our

agriculture system so it was introduced in the mid-1970s it was really popular because it was

claimed that it didn't impact human health and so this was a perfect weed killer to be used on

the farms and in the mid-19 so I think in 1996 that GMOs were launched so GMOs soy and corn

and they were genetically modified to be resistant to the effects of roundup so they're called

roundup ready and this is what we're growing in mass in this country and so a farmer could plant

their seeds their GMO seeds they could spray them with as much roundup as they wanted and the crop

wouldn't die so that seemed like a miracle because all the weeds that would compete for the nutrients

in the soil would die and the crop would would succeed now unfortunately the weeds have gotten

smart now after all these years and a lot of them are turning into superweeds where they're no longer

resistant to roundup which is kind of amazing but so it's used there and then our most direct

impact to our diet in our diet is really from this pre-harvest desiccation that is mentioning

earlier about our grains and legumes being sprayed and that is has only been going on for about

20 years it is a process in which a farmer will do a pass of the chemical so spray glyphosate

on a crop a grain crop right before harvest so that the whole field dries out at the same time

it makes it much easier to harvest so that sprayed it's harvested it goes directly to the middle

and it ends up in our bread in our cereal in our hummus so that is really I think that is just

the health ramifications from that are actually really substantial because what was discovered later

is how vital the microbiome is to our overall health and that's relatively new science the EPA

doesn't even consider that science but that claim that it doesn't that glyphosate doesn't impact

human health but because and this gets a little more technical but glyphosate works on a

enzyme pathway in a plant so it's a it's a pathway that purportedly humans don't have

and so that is why the monsanto could justify it's not going to impact human health

but as it turns out that pathway is in our gut bacteria so when we're eating glyphosate and it ends

up in our stomach and it hits our gut microbiome it is selectively killing our beneficial gut

bacteria but it doesn't kill the pathogenic bacteria so it's like the worst kind of antibiotic

we could possibly have but she brings that evidence about how it's it's injuring us through our

microbiome and contributing to leaky gut and all of these things that are at the root of functional

medicine and the EPA will say we don't have any capacity we don't require testing on the microbiome

and it's so it's so antiquated the way that they assess chemicals that this is a whole new frontier

so though that is really concerning with the spraying and I think it's contributing to a lot of

things but it's certainly not just the gut microbiome the glyphosate is impacting

and we're going to go to our first break and when we come back we're going to continue the

conversation on on how the chemicals impact because that's a big a big issue and that's an

interesting topic you're listening to the maha lowdown and we'll be back in a few more. Hi this

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that is x l e a r dot com welcome back to the maha lowdown i'm Jeff lottery back and i'm here with

Kelly Ryerson who is known as the glyphosate girl and also as the co-founder of american regeneration

which Kelly will get into that because i know that's adventurous to a lot of people american

regeneration but based on what we were talking about before i think that's interesting how

glyphosate and not just glyphosate as you pointed out that's the main chemical that's known

now but as you pointed out there's lots of other chemicals that are impacting in a dangerous way

so what can you tell us about that as far as like uh how how that's evolving and addressing that

and as far as uh the different chemicals and how they impact our hill so your glyphosate first

of all glyphosate is is the most researched chemical so there's a lot that's connected to glyphosate

in the peer reviewed research so things like liver disease cancer kidney disease significant endocrine

disruption from glyphosate where it's contributed to decrease it's it's linked to decreased

sperm motility and killings firm and decreased testosterone this list of hormone disorders that

really shouldn't be there and glyphosate can be a contributor to so that's glyphosate there are

tons of pesticides right now that are allowed on our food i think it's close to 70 that are

banned in europe that we happily spray in the united states periquot is another one that we

allow in the united states we shouldn't it's so tightly connected to Parkinson's disease it is

wild that we still allow this chemchina as historically um they just recently actually said

they're not going to sell it here anymore but there'll be other companies that do but chemchina

which is a government owned chemical company because they bought another company called

they sell periquot to the united states but they don't allow periquot to be sprayed in china because

it's connected to to Parkinson's disease this is just one example of many that are unbelievable what

our country is willing to do to ourselves same with atrazine atrazine is the one if you guys

remember the headlines that seem kind of outrageous that the frogs were the sexes that the frogs

were changing um after exposure to atrazine and atrazine is found in the drinking water of 30

million americans that's it's a high number and that is a chemical that is not allowed in europe

because it's extremely undergrinned is rupting and it's unbelievable that the EPA is allowing it

and now atrazine is connected to cancer in the same way that glyphosate is from the international

agency research on cancer and so between that we have some very toxic fungicides and just this

accumulation of chemicals that were exposed to is really unsustainable and in my opinion is

actually the basis of the chronic disease epidemic because once you look at how biologically these

chemicals are working they're designed to kill and that's exactly what they're doing and it's

amazing that some people think that something that kills a bug or a plant isn't going to have any

the same impact on humanity and and when you look at the fertility crisis in this country where

for infertility now is it i believe 15 percent that should be a huge warning and my argument would

be instead of focusing on IVF infertility solutions that are super expensive and oftentimes fail

why aren't we digging into the base root reason why we are becoming an infertile country

and address that but of course that would mean that the chemical companies would take a profit hit

so i don't know what do you think about the educated the importance of education because i know

like i've had a john chloron who is he's a if you you might know john he's a yeah yeah i work with

based in vermont and he is i know he's heavy with the maha advocacy and uh and i know

and and of course i talked about uh will Harris down at white oak pastures a regenerative farmer who

used to be heavy industrial and uh he has a fifth or he's fourth generation and his daughters

are fifth generation and um he has some grandchildren or sixth generation they'll probably be taken over

but they used to farm heavy industrial and now he's the one people are coming down there to learn

how to transition to regenerative and they but i know john will other people like Joel

Salatin talk about the importance of education because unfortunately

likely glyphosate isn't going away and uh the importance of education as far as like farmers

and consumers i guess it's two two separate areas but what are your thoughts about that as far as

first educating farmers and what do you think that some farmers are resistant that are reluctant to

change so we at american regeneration we have such amazing the this amazing farming team that

that works as our advisors um will Harris is one of them and we oftentimes are talking about

what enormous promise regenerative agriculture holds and regenerative agriculture isn't necessarily

organic but it is regenerative in that soil is improving um because of improved practices

in restoring ecosystems and it's just it's absolutely beautiful and miraculous to watch a farm

transition from these conventional methods and you see life coming back to the farm when the birds reappear

the insects reappear and the food tastes better um it's truly a miracle and it's if we came into

the maha movement so excited because we know kennedy knows this regenerative secret and and that we

can really transform both our food and our land and just all this hope and it's extremely

disappointing to see the direction of the government despite claiming to be maha and we were thrilled

that there was an eight hundred million dollar pilot program put together at the beginning of the

year but the amount of money that's going to continuing to subsidize the alternative path is

just really disappointing and and you know not really what we envisioned for this administration

but back to the education issue this is the problem that we always are talking about where

the education is it's a huge huge ask on of the farmers the education you don't have someone that's

coming what you really need is you need the education and you need someone to come and say hey this

is like a full farm plan for you that you could execute over the next 10 years and you don't have

someone doing that the NRCS groups typically aren't that well versed in regenerative practices especially

as it applies to a particular region because it varies by region um what those practices might look

like and then you have so you have that and then you have the resistance from the farmers who in

some cases I actually talked to a lot of younger farmers so the children of the the current owner

the farm and a lot of times the children are more excited about trying regenerative practices and

the parents will say the dad will say oh that's silly like that would never work you have to be using

the fertilizer you have to be spraying and and so I have some hope that that next generation as

long as the farmers can hold on to the family farm because that's questionable too because the

debt levels are really high that you might see some more ambitious farmers getting back on the farm

and thinking about really how to improve things and improve those practices and I think that's

an interesting topic itself which I just jotted that down that's a good show idea for the near future

about I think the average age of a farmer now in the United States is 60 and if I have my stats

correct I'm pretty sure it's around that range and then like you said from what I've all the people

I've covered they there there is a resistance or reluctance because that's what you know they

talk about that's what my grandfather did that's what my father did or we've done this for

decades and and then of course you mentioned you talk about what's happened since and we got

to remember two Kennedys only been in what is it it's March 2026 so he's been in a little over a

year so obviously there's still a lot more time it's going to take to implement some initial changes

but it's not going to happen overnight I think that's what I've learned and I'm I'm coming in this I

like it I'm fascinated about this because I didn't really develop an interest in this until

last few years and now I've been covering it so I'm I learned it that's why I like talking to

people like yourself because I I learned a lot about topics I never had an interest in until

last few years and and now I'm still learning about but the regenerative agriculture is an addictive

topic because it's just so pleasing it's so interesting because it it is and I guess my next

question to you and I'll say a few more things before before you answer what's the difference between

regenerative and regenerative organic because I've learned about that too and the that's just

fascinating because you don't you talk about the younger farmers and that's where I've found two

young people are they like this they they're excited about it and they see they like the farm

to consume or model whether it be raw milk or cattle or or crops and that's just fascinating

in itself so maybe you could say what's what's that because you brought that up maybe you could

expound on that the difference between regenerative and regenerative organic yeah so

and this is a point of conflict actually among people so there's there's a very lively debate

that sometimes gets really passionate around whether or not a regenerative system if it's not

organic is a truly regenerative and their arguments back and forth because a lot of organic farmers

till and that's not positive for the soil structure and that can you can break break the soil up

and not make it as productive but then the organic people say well if you allow any chemicals at

all then that's also not regenerative because then that's killing the soil so there's tons of

debate around it but I so I did some work with regenified which is a group a company that was

co-founded by Gabe Brown who's incredible regenerative farmer and I was able to interview tons

of different farmers I was trying to understand their decrease in pesticide use as they adopt

regenerative practices and it is hearing these stories is just amazing and this is why this is

so important to me that regenerative stays not necessarily restrictive to just organic because

these farmers are terrified oftentimes of taking the first step of decreasing input like one

year deciding we're not going to spray a fungicide and they are really worried because they are

worried they're going to lose profit by taking this risk of spraying less and they do it and things

end up okay and it's very gradual process of understanding when their farm system is going to be

able to tolerate tapering off of these different chemicals it's similar to drugs I oftentimes think

about the any depressants that they layered me on when I was sick incorrectly layered the mom but

you have to taper those off really carefully else you have a reaction in your body that because

it's not used to not having these inputs so if a similar kind of thing I see over on the farm where

dealing with the soil and taking away and stripping fertility overnight it could be really

catastrophic to the farm so the idea of meeting the farmer wherever they are in the practice and

giving them the education and steps that they need to do more productive less chemical intensive

farming and restore the ecosystems all of that to me and to many is regenerative because you're

healing things it's it's it's the active verb of regenerating and organic takes it to the next

level and that is probably the most challenging farming that you can do where it's both regenerative

and organic so there'll be no synthetic sprays whatsoever on the organic because you can't have

that and you can't be doing a lot of tilling because that is not regenerative that is very tricky

in its context specific and that's why when you go and you buy a regenerative organic product right

now in the market it's so incredibly expensive because of that just that high level of farming

that that takes so right now at the USDA they have one one recognized regenerative label and that

is re-genified and in order to be a member of re-genified or like part of their program you have to

be showing constant improvement through soil testing to show that the soil is in fact improving

meaning that you are putting in more regenerative practices they're really starting to take

and and I think that that's a great metric that they also put on the USDA 800 million dollar

pilot program where you had if you wanted these grants you're going to have to prove that your

soil improved in quality over the time yeah and that's uh I just think it makes sense because you don't

just first of all you're not going to change someone's mindset it's going to take time for them to see

the process that their grandfather did their their father did and they've done is is not really

ideal for for the health of the animals the land and and the people consuming the food

I that's that's why the will Harris's story which I just that just published the story on white oak

published earlier this week and I think I was there I can't remember when I was I was there for

a mayor an immersion and regenerative agriculture workshop and I thought it was fascinating and

and obviously you know will so he's a fascinating guy to begin with he's a he's a character himself

but that's that's fascinating I mean he he he talked about that how you know he went in the 70s to

well he's a fourth generation farmer and he in the 70s he went to the University of Georgia and

that's what they taught him and and he believed in those practices that what he calls heavy

industrial for it wasn't until the mid 1990s that he started making gradual changes and then in

the 2000s the first decade of the 2000s is when he went all in and so it's a process and I

I think it's exciting that it's starting to happen now because ideally everyone would stop

farming conventionally and immediately go regenerative but even if they did that it would take time

to rebuild the soil so I guess that's another topic too in itself soil health it definitely it

definitely takes time to be making that transition even to make the decision to to go for it and

something that I learned that I wasn't aware of is that part of the problem is that a lot of the

farmers are not even on the farm anymore so what will often happen in planning for your planting

season is a farmer or the landowner basically goes down to the local co-op to the retailer and they

will come up with a plan of what they're going to plant that year and this this co-op owner will

talk to the chemical companies and they'll say okay this year you're going to do these this corn

in this soil and these are the chemicals you're going to spray this is the deal I can get you

for them what do you think and so then the farmer will say okay yeah I think that that makes sense

and then what will happen is then they will also outsource the planting and the spraying of the

corn in the soil so they're really not even interacting with the farm and then the co-op will send

some 18 year old kid to go and do the planting and spraying and attractor so they're really

just making these decisions at the retail a lot or not ever out on the farm and so getting

those large landowners to make a transition when they're not on the farm as it is and they are

just trying to make like they're not doing the physical labor they're waiting for their subsidy

to arrive and hoping that that covers into their costs so getting people back out onto the farm

is really going to be a really big part of it and that is where this younger generation comes in

and I'm thrilled because I think I'm seeing people younger people in their 20s and 30s that

are glamorizing and glamorizing rightfully in my opinion this return to the farm and having

their own lot plots and a big part of the the reason why it's not having more rapidly is because

farmland is so expensive that it's almost impossible unless you are independently wealthy to go and

buy that land especially uncontaminated land where they really could make a regenerative farm so

those are just some of the things that we're bringing up actually with the government now because

making purchase of farmland more accessible so it's not just these huge monocrop conglomerates

that can afford it is going to be really important I think for the future of our food security

and that's it this is a perfect time for our final break because when we come back we're going to

talk about the state liability shields the farm bill and other other projects going on or other

initiatives that that state legislatures and the HHS are considering you're listening to the

maha lowdown and I'm Jeff Lauterback we'll be back in a few minutes struggling with your health

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welcome back to the maha lowdown I'm Jeff Lauterback I'm here with Kelly Ryerson the glyphosate

girl and co-founder of American regeneration and Kelly we could talk about I know I'm gonna have

to have you on for another show because there's so many there's just so much going on right now

so many topics that we've covered and we haven't even gotten to the farm bill and what we're about

to get to the state liability shields of state legislatures and the I know there's there's a

couple federal bills about monsanto or bear monsanto trying to get liability from legal ramifications so

um maybe we'll dive right into that because I know this is your passion right now uh standing

up against this and I know on April 27th there is the people maybe we could start with that people

versus poison on April 27th tell us a little bit about that and know what it's regarding

yes so this is an event that we hope everyone is going to come to who care who's ever cared about

food and pesticides so going back to 2018 this glyphosate cancer case that I blogged

back then I never would have imagined that we would be here in 2026 in there with a supreme court

case around the glyphosate cancer case so this is a really enormous crisis moment in this country

bear stood to go bankrupt from all of these this cancer litigation they have refused to put a

cancer label on their product they instead several years ago announced that they were going to try

to make it impossible to sue them or pesticide manufacturers when you get sick from exposure to a

pesticide by passing different liability shields or different legislation throughout the country at

the state level and the federal level to make it impossible to sue pesticide manufacturers so

that sounds absolutely insane because what member of our government would say okay we're going to

give protection to a form to a foreign chemical company that sells poisons and make sure that

Americans cannot sue them when they get sick from exposure okay so like this is insane and never

ever did even the lawyers think that that's something that could move forward because it's that

crazy but here we are on multiple fronts being attacked with exactly that so at the Supreme Court

level the Supreme Court never should have taken up this case it's happening and starting on April 27th

but the White House decided to decide with bear and told the Supreme Court we think you should hear

this case now what's at stake at this case is bear is saying that if the EPA says that glyphosate

doesn't cause cancer then they should not be sued when glyphosate causes cancer because the EPA

said it was safe now the problem is that the EPA is an entirely corrupt institution we know it is

it has been almost inception the internal documents about glyphosate approval show that they were

working in cahoots with the company and they are basing it on faulty research that was ghost

written and just crooked crooked behavior there so that is why we still don't have a cancer label

because the EPA works in cahoots with the chemical industry but now at the Supreme Court they're hoping

to get the the judges to say that if the EPA says it's safe then they don't get to be sued this

won't just apply for glyphosate this will apply across the board to all pesticide manufacturers

of 57,000 different pesticide products so we will no longer be able to sue if we get Parkinson's

from Paracwat like this the fact that people don't know that this is going down and that you don't

have the large environmental groups anywhere to be seen like there is not a whisper from them

and it's bizarre because if there were ever a crisis in the environmental movement it is

this second so instead you have a handful of people from maha basically and and certainly

there are also some people from organizations like Center for Food Safety

and and EWG to a certain extent that are trying also to to fight this but it is very few people

and very few organizations but that is why we called a rally because we were severely

disappointed on several different several different things have come out of the White House and

then it was shown that Susie Wiles and Pam Bondy both have tight connections to Ballard Partners

which is it was a huge donor to the Trump administration and in fact Ballard Partners their

number one group that they represent in lobbying is bear so now we understand because that was a

that was a study that was done and investigation done by U.S. right to know just recently released

and so we're like okay so this makes more sense why all this pro bear everything is coming out

of this White House it's entirely a hundred percent counter to what Trump promised us to go after

pesticides I don't actually know the extent to which Trump even knows about it this seems like

some of the workings of people around him but anyway so that is really what's at stake but we

are going to rally we're meeting at 9 a.m. on in front of the Supreme Court and we are going to

let it be known inside that Supreme Court we want to be loud how we the people are standing up

against poison because that is literally what's happening here is we are directly being poisoned

and now our very last recourse of taking a taking a polluter and a company to court

is going to be stripped from us and that's so not American

why and it's important that that be known and that you stand up and I know that I've talked

to Zen Hunnicut and she made the point that if the Supreme Court decides for Monsanto that that's

not going to stop the education and the advocacy to what we what you and I have been talking about

here about getting farmers to make the transition and getting you talked about the pilot program which

I think was initially $700 million which is a drop in the bucket compared to the money that's

given to agriculture in general and I think it's important obviously to increase that and I know

she talked as in Hunnicut talked about the advocacy the work to increase assistance for them and

also obviously the education and I know you're having involved for consumers to

get them to know and maybe that we could touch on that as far as the importance of being able to

know what to do to avoid because it's almost like there's no possible way to avoid these chemicals

100% there just has to be a shift in mindset as a consumer to know where your food comes from

and how it's raised. Yeah I think if that's the bottom line in putting consumer pressure

there are a lot of the leaders in the regenerative farming movement many have said that this is

going to have to we can't wait for the government at this point and it needs to take off on its own

and that means having some kind of price premium for the regenerative growers so that when

they're doing these practices they're incentivized to do it and so that's going to require raising

public consciousness also around what a regenerative label means and minimizing regenerative fraud

and so there's a lot that's going on but you know through the my co-founder of American

regeneration ryanland angle heart has been a producer of both kiss the ground and common ground the

two really amazing films that highlight the benefits of regenerative agriculture and whole foods

did a big campaign around common ground we now have come up with a 45 minute cut of common ground

for that's an education cut just to try and spread the word because even in DC when we meet with

agriculture the staffers that are the ag staffers it is amazing how a few people have heard anything

about regenerative agriculture and really when you think about it this is a very new concept I mean

we have some of these epic veterans of regenerative agriculture but it really isn't until recently

that more people are knowing certainly at the consumer level even thinking for a second what

regenerative really is so I think that that it's really a PR task to raise the awareness around it

because it is something that I think a lot of consumers the polls are showing by the way that

there are a lot of constituents doesn't matter your party that are waking up to the toxins in

the food supply and are very upset about the pesticides so that is amazing if nothing else at

least my work and in those of us are working in pesticides with maha if nothing else just raising

the public awareness around these things and the fact that you know and Trump we can't not mention

that Trump had an executive order a few weeks ago that basically was putting national security

protection around the production of glyphosate and really doubling down and signaling that glyphosate

is here to stay and we need it and and it was really stunning because there was no need to do such a

grand executive order around what was actually being asked but that's what happened amazingly that

actually raised the public awareness of glyphosate and people started questioning what is glyphosate

so you have this enormous enormous media run on what is glyphosate as like oh my gosh that might

be the best thing we could have done for raising public consciousness yeah that's ironic isn't it

because I know that as in honeycutt had talked about that she said that that is similar to

the dangers of vaccines like when the COVID vaccine mandates came out and then awareness was

created that never had been before widespread about the ingredients and vaccines and I think that's

similar I that is ironic that now and I know that's probably propels you being that you're still

known as the glyphosate girl that now what man never been more popular like suddenly my

Instagram got hot that was like look at that all because of the executive order who knew yeah

I want to we have about five minutes left I wanted to talk about that and well that executive

order kind of touches on what we were talking about before the importance of education of

that if it's not going to be going away that at least it's important to educate farmers and to

help get them assistance to make the move the 700 million pilot programs to start but obviously

it a lot more is needed and then the education for consumers to know where their foods coming

from or where to get it and how to do their best to avoid it I mean would you would you say that

that's encapsulizes the next stages or would you like to add upon that or correct any of that

well I really think so I mean I'm looking at that regenerative pilot and hoping that indeed it's

just a pilot and that there's going to be a substantial outlay of more there's a lot going on

that's very interesting right now because with that executive order I actually had said a long time

and there are people within the maha movement you know that we come from all kinds of

different concerns as you mentioned in the beginning so you have the food people you even have

like EMF people you have vaccine people and I just had a feeling because I've been doing this

so long that I was feeling like the food and the pesticides were really a large chunk of the

people that came over to maha me that's just who I met but it seemed like that was a dominant part

of it and and so the the fact that then there was this executive order and it was incredibly

miscalculated it was the worst PR possible for pissing off but now maybe it doesn't matter maybe

Trump would do it one way or the other but the the fact that they went there with this group

that so passionately feels about this it was I think it was just such a gross miscalculation

and now that I'm looking forward to say the midterms and and this is something now I'm being

asked about a lot because I've seen this huge bleed out of maha people that are DMing me and saying

that I would never ever vote for a Republican again I would never support this because this is

the worst thing ever because of that much passion around glyphosate and I mean that's just

disappointing because we know how much achievement is happening in you know and other ways at HHS

but and I know this isn't exactly what you asked but I just you know it's it's just so

incredibly hard I think as a movement when our number one voting parameters for a lot of us

in the maha movement is just making people healthy and having like clean food and clean water

and I'm finding as I'm fighting the liability shields that the people that are reaching out to

me are all Democrats and I don't know where the Republicans are because the Republican constituents

absolutely care about this issue and polls have shown that this is a bipartisan issue and I'm not sure

where the movement goes forward from this except that I'm really hopeful that on the presidential

stage is we come around to the next round of it that for the first time ever toxicity will

hopefully be debated and and more money can be put into things like regenerative agriculture and

maybe there'll be more education on this so I think we're kind of looking at a 10-year-times fan

to really see something measurable happen but and before we ended I wanted to be sure to say that

this fertilizer crisis that we're witnessing right now among farms so a lot of the fertilizer

we bring into this country is synthetic and we import it and it makes our ag system very dependent

on foreign players to have fertility there the thing about regenerative agriculture is that

people grow their own fertility some fertilizer is still used but a lot of it is driven by cover

cropping in these practices that really restore fertility to the soil so you don't have to use

as many inputs in fertilizer and this should be the moment because of this crisis where the

farmers do not have enough fertilizer this should be the moment that the USDA and everyone says hey

this is scary the United States is is really threatened in national security if we can't grow our own

food hey let's put a lot more money into the regenerative pilot let's start looking for these

alternative weed killers all of that should be this should be the moment for it so I'm looking

to see what happens there and we're about out of time I wanted to remind the listeners that they

could find information on Kelly and Kelly Ryerson the glyphosate grow or glyphosate facts and American

regeneration I'll put that in the article that is on the mahalo down so Kelly I appreciate you

being on and look forward to having you again great thank you so much for having me and just wanted

to wrap that up and once again thank you for listening to the mahalo down and we'll see you next