HHS’ RFK Jr supports organic as Trump administration backs regenerative agriculture

HHS Secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr told organic farmers, food manufacturers and other industry stakeholders this week that he is willing to do “anything and everything” to help the sector grow, even as other policies under the Trump administration have raised questions about the federal government’s support for organic, including attempts to rescind relevant regulations, reallocate financial support and reduce workforce support.

“The Organic label is a critical part of the American culture and our diet and our health, and it is something that is recognized by consumers. It has an established market. It has third-party verification. It is a federal certification. It is a really important brand to preserve, bolster and strengthen,” Kennedy said Tuesday at the Organic Trade Association’s Organic Week conference in Washington, DC.

“Literally every product in my house is organic,” and the standard is “completely aligned with the [Make America Healthy Again] agenda. I think it is the direction we need to go,” he added – eliciting cheers from the audience.

But, he added, “the one thing that I would worry about is any attempts to weaken the standards.”

Organic faces a shifting policy landscape under Trump administrations

Several actions during the Trump administration’s current and first term have placed pressure on the organic industry – including proposed regulatory changes, reductions or delays in some organic funding and significant USDA workforce reductions.

For example, during the current term, the Trump administration proposed rescinding the USDA’s December 2024 market-development rule for organic mushrooms and pet food. And during the administration’s first term, USDA declined to adopt the National Organic Standards Board’s recommendation to prohibit carrageenan in organic products.

At the start of Trump’s first term, USDA withdrew the final Organic Livestock and Poultry Practices rule, which industry fought aggressively to reinstate despite multiple hurdles.

The current Trump administration has also deprioritized funding for some organic programs. For example, the 2025 USDA budget proposed a $3.5 million reduction in the Organic Transitions Program from $7.5 million in 2024. The agency justified the proposal as “consistent with the Administration’s policy to redirect available resources, as appropriate, from lower-priority areas to other science and technology activities.”

It added the program is supported through other funding sources.

Likewise, USDA’s National Institute of Food and Agriculture subsequently awarded $6.4 million through the Organic Transitions Program in November 2025, and in June 2026 opened another $7.5 million funding opportunity for the program.

As for staffing, the administration’s broader restructuring of USDA resulted in substantial workforce reductions. The National Organic Coalition estimated in March 2026 that the National Organic Program lost about a third of its staff in the preceding year. And the Accredited Certifiers Association argued during a National Organic Standards Board meeting in April 2025 that the reductions could result in a “grinding slowdown” in certifiers’ ability to conduct their work.

The administration ultimately decided the NOP staff in the Washington, DC, region would not be forced to relocate, which could alleviate additional pressure or vacancies related to the reorganization.

Regenerative agriculture emerges as a parallel policy priority

Kennedy’s stated support for organic also comes as the Trump administration is placing a growing policy and financial emphasis on regenerative agriculture, which shares some practices and goals with USDA Certified Organic but is not a federally defined certification system equivalent to the USDA organic standard.

In the past decade, several private regenerative and regenerative-organic certification standards have been developed, but the lack of a single federal standard governing regenerative production could create a more fragmented market environment for farmers and food companies as the sector attracts federal investment and potentially greater consumer and commercial attention.

Earlier this summer, President Donald Trump signed an Executive Order directing HHS, USDA and the Environmental Protection Agency to strengthen research, innovation and public-private partnerships that support regenerative agriculture and reduce reliance on conventional chemical crop-protection tools. The mandates were couched as part of the Make America Health Again agenda.

They include directing EPA to examine whether existing chemical uses and labels comply with safety and environmental requirements, and prioritize registration of alternatives to older active ingredients following required human-health and ecological risk assessments. EPA also is directed to review pre-harvest desiccation uses in accordance with safety and environmental standards.

The Executive Order also directs the agencies to develop a research and evaluation framework for studying cumulative exposure of chemicals in the food supply and incentivizes researchers with the creation of an NIH grand-prize challenge.

It also tells USDA to maximize funding for and consider expanding the recently established Regenerative Pilot Program, which was launched in December 2025 and backed with $700 million.

The same day that Trump signed the Executive Order, USDA finalized the Regenerative Feedstock Rule to connect regenerative agriculture practices within new markets for biofuel supply.

Two distinct systems

The growing federal emphasis on regenerative agriculture raises questions about the role of Certified Organic in the food supply and how the two frameworks relate to each other and the administration’s goals.

While the two approaches share some practices and goals, Kennedy drew a clear distinction between them at the OTA event.

“A lot of organic farmers also are regenerative and vice versa, but they are two different things, and in my view, they should be kept separate because you’re incentivizing two different kinds of behavior,” Kennedy said.

He distinguished the two by saying organic “mainly focuses on pesticides and chemicals,” while regenerative agriculture focuses on “nutrient density,” soil health, farm resilience and reducing reliance on outside inputs.

OTA Co-CEO Tom Chapman, who moderated the conversation with Kennedy, quickly clarified USDA Organic certification covers much more than pesticides and chemicals.

“We also have farm practice standards and soil health as a part of the standards, including crop rotation, green manures, biodiversity and other areas,” he said. He added that USDA Organic certification also prohibits many food additives that Kennedy and MAHA have said they don’t want.

OTA and the broader organic industry has long struggled to communicate the many benefits of USDA Organic, and last year launched the “Seal Makes it Simple” campaign, which aims to clarify organic’s many attributes and how the standard differs from regenerative and other single-attribute claims, like non-GMO, that fall under organic.

Chapman told Kennedy: “We’d love to work with your department, find ways to bolster that information.”

Building supply to meet demand

Chapman also pitched Kennedy on helping to transition more acreage and farmers to organic to support the MAHA agenda and meet existing, and growing, consumer demand.

“Our market is growing. We are ready to support this movement that you’re doing. The question, really, for us is not a demand problem; it is a supply problem,” he said.

He argued converting land and farmers to organic doesn’t have to be an all-or-nothing proposition. Rather, he said, half of the organic producers are split operations because they are learning the system and bringing on acreage piece by piece.

“You coming here and speaking with us and helping to spread the world about organic can help get this message out there,” Chapman added. “Americans want it. We want to make sure that its growing here in the US as well and that we get all those benefits.”

Kennedy said he has also encountered conventional farmers interested in transitioning to more sustainable practices, with questions often centered on the economics of the transition, including costs, yields and profit per acre.

“A lot of the barriers have come down now, and there is a real opportunity for us to change the agriculture system and the food system of our country, and make our kids healthy again,” he concluded.