Update:
President-elect Donald Trump has nominated Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to be Secretary of Health and Human Services.
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As President-elect Donald Trump selects Cabinet appointees for his second term, attention has turned to where Robert F. Kennedy Jr., leader of the "Make America Healthy Again" movement, might be placed—potentially in agencies overseeing food or health policies.
In the days before the presidential election, RFK Jr. published a short video on X indicating that when Trump "gets me inside" the United States Department of Agriculture, "we're going to give farmers an off-ramp from the current system that destroys soil, makes people sick, and harms family farms."
When @realDonaldTrump gets me inside the USDA, we're going to give farmers an off-ramp from the current system that destroys soil, makes people sick, and harms family farms.
— Robert F. Kennedy Jr (@RobertKennedyJr) October 30, 2024
If you want this to happen as much as I do, PLEASE DONATE TODAY ➡️ https://t.co/YxxGkb2Ulq pic.twitter.com/npo6ZEiIo6
In other words, RFK Jr. and the MAHA team will ensure that small farms are made great again by directing policies to focus on traditional agriculture.
The Trump victory signals that Americans want to drain the DC swamp and improve their health—if that's through busting up the corruption in the USDA and FDA. The MAHA movement ensures that small farms will be prioritized over mega-corporate farms.
RFK Jr.'s former running mate, Nicole Shanahan, provided more color in a recent interview about some of the MAHA plans:
"We're definitely up against a lot, between what I call the real food movement and the fake food movement, and really what belies these two movements is a population of people who don't need to spend an enormous amount of money on healthcare services, that are healthy, that are vibrant … and then belying the fake food movement is very, very wealthy corporations that are going to have an endless patient pool, and are going to have a consumer base that actually is physically addicted to some of these products.
And then also, an entire psychology around it that has people believing that they're sacrificing themselves for the greater good … we saw it play out in the delivery of the Covid vaccines."
Shanahan continued:
"This is where I want to make the investments in our country. I want to create an entire - I want to bring back the infrastructure that allowed small and mid-size growers to be able to produce, and process, and package, and distribute locally, because that has all been taken away for the most part - it's why it's impossible economically for small growers to make a profit today."
Earlier in the interview, she noted:
"I've been a producer on a few of these regenerative agriculture films, and the biggest pushback we've ever gotten [was] from the artificial meat investors.
Nice Shanahan: The movement for real food is “up against A LOT”
— American Values � (@AV24org) November 14, 2024
“I want to bring BACK the infrastructure that allowed small and mid-size growers to be able to produce, and process, and package, and distribute locally, because that has all been taken away.”
“I’ve been a producer… pic.twitter.com/iDxGKduFhc
Bold vision: Go long small farms? Go short, fake meat?