According to Daniel Glickman, who served under President Bill Clinton, Kennedy’s past makes him an unlikely candidate for agriculture secretary. “It’s hard for me to imagine, given Trump’s traditional base in the heartland, that he would choose someone who was in favor of breaking up large farms and breaking up consolidated agriculture,” Glickman says.
Like top positions at HHS, the USDA secretary position would have to be confirmed by a vote in the Senate. “I don’t think so [Kennedy] that’s a slam dunk,” Glickman says.
Trump chose Sonny Perdue, a former Georgia governor and founder of an agricultural trading company, to head the USDA during his first term. Most agriculture secretaries have industry or policy experience – two key areas for someone who will lead a department with nearly 100,000 employees and 29 agencies focused on forestry, environmental and nutrition programs. “The Difference Between Sonny Perdue and Robert F. Kennedy Jr. it’s like night and day,” says Glickman.
If Kennedy were confirmed as Secretary of Agriculture, he might have difficulty implementing the most radical parts of his agenda. He is an outspoken critic of pesticides, but the USDA is generally not responsible for regulating them, says Dan Blaustein-Rejto, director of agricultural policy and research at the Breakthrough Institute. Instead, the EPA regulates pesticides for public health uses.
While he may not be able to directly influence pesticide regulations, Kennedy said he would try to “weaponize” others agencies against “chemical farming” by commissioning scientific research on the effects of pesticides. The USDA Agricultural Research Service has a discretionary budget of nearly $2 billion for research on crops, livestock, nutrition, food safety and natural products. resource protection.
The agriculture secretary could pull different levers, Blaustein-Rejto says. USDA is investing Over $3 billion Climate-Smart Commodities Partnership, a program to make American agriculture more climate-friendly. The head of the USDA could put his thumb on their scale, influencing the selection criteria for these types of programs. USDA also oversees the Commodity Credit Corporation (CCC), which has a $5 billion fund that it uses to support farm incomes and environmental programs, as well as to help farmers affected by natural disasters. It is possible that the head of the USDA will have an influence on how the agency distributes CCC funds.
Kennedy also argued that corporate interests have hijacked the United States Dietary Guidelines and promised to remove conflicts of interest from USDA groups that develop dietary guidelines. The U.S. Dietary Guidelines are developed jointly by the USDA and HHS and updated every five years, giving the agriculture secretary limited ability to influence any recommendations.
“If RFK is in a high-level political role, I expect there will be a lot more talk about ultra-processed foods, but I’m not sure what that would actually mean in terms of dietary guidelines,” Blaustein-Rejto says.
Experts interviewed by WIRED largely believe Kennedy’s more extreme position will likely be restricted by bureaucracy. But the message that vocal vaccine skeptics and conspiracy theorists would send remains a major concern for a potential second Trump administration.