By Robert McGreevy, Daily Caller News Foundation | May 20, 2025
Fifty-seven percent of national voters agreed that farmer control over weeds, diseases and pests on crops keeps food affordable, according to a poll exclusively obtained by the Daily Caller.
Out of the 1,000 voters surveyed, only nine percent considered government regulation over farmer use of pesticides to be a priority.
The national poll, from Trump pollster Adam Geller, was commissioned by CropLife America and conducted by Geller’s firm National Research Inc. in May.
Voters also answered questions about the MAHA Commission — a landmark intergovernmental effort to combat chronic disease that President Donald Trump created with an executive order in February.
Just three percent of voters ranked investigating farmers as a top priority for the MAHA Commission. Fifty-nine percent said the Commission should focus on enabling American kids to have access to healthier food while another nine percent said it should focus on helping kids get more exercise.
Forty-six percent of voters agreed with the statement: “American farmers need pesticides to grow enough food for the country. This is not just critical for making groceries more affordable but also reducing the trade deficit and protecting our national security.”
Twenty-four percent disagreed while 21 percent were neutral or unsure.
Those results echoed sentiments expressed in Agricultural Secretary Brooke Rollins’ conversation with Breitbart News’s Matthew Boyle Tuesday, according to a partial transcript obtained by the Caller.
Rollins noted that Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has embraced farmer’s concerns over potentially eliminating pesticides — even though Kennedy has sued certain pesticide manufacturers in the past.
“I have found him to be extremely curious and wants to understand. He’s been meeting with farmers and producers to really get his arms around exactly what it is that we do in the ag community and why it is that things such as fertilizer and pesticides are necessary to feed America and the world,” Rollins told Boyle.
Kennedy has represented numerous plaintiffs in suing Bayer. The company owns Monsanto, which produced a brand-name glyphosate weed killer known as RoundUp.
He also called glyphosate “toxic” in an interview.
Kennedy was questioned Tuesday on the use of agricultural chemicals.
“I would want to look at the microbiomes in the soil and how … chemicals that we’re using in agriculture are sickening farmers, in many cases potentially and are destroying the microbiome and creating a situation where soil is running off and where most agronomists believe that we only have 60 harvests left,” Kennedy said in a Tuesday testimony to the Senate Appropriations Committee.
Despite this, Rollins praised her working relationship with Kennedy while also stressing the importance of pesticides on crop yields.
“I’m right there with all the moms especially that are so concerned, and the dads, but that we have to balance that with not an immediate ‘we’ve got to basically shut all this down,’ because it’s not possible,” she told Boyle.
“We will starve. We can’t produce the food we need to and feed the people we need to with a wholesale 180-degree turn, but a long-term vision, and how we get there together in partnership is, I believe, how we solve this,” she concluded.
The national poll demonstrates Americans trust farmers, CropLife America CEO Alexandra Dunn said in a statement provided exclusively to the Caller.
“This poll confirms what America’s farmers have known for generations: the public trusts them and understands that pesticides are an essential tool for growing the food we all rely on,” Dunn stated.
“As families continue to strain to put fresh, healthy food on their tables, Americans recognize that pesticides are essential tools for an abundant and cost-effective food supply,” Geller said in an exclusive statement to the Caller.
Robert McGreevy is a reporter at the Daily Caller News Foundation.
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