Glyphosate debate fuels push for regenerative farming

0:00Welcome 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

1:08is 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

2:12their 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

3:16health 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.

4:17And 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

5:21entirely 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

6:26in 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

7:27walk 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

8:30all 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.

9:31This 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

10:37Monsanto 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

11:38thanks 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

12:46indirectly 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

13:49really 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

14:50it'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

15:52roundup 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

16:52it 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

17:57up 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

19:02is Kurt Mike from the National Security Hour calling old Patriots to join me in Nashville on July 2nd 3rd and 4th for America out loud news 250 10th anniversary in Nashville go get them cowboys along with clear the wellness company we're celebrating two big milestones two hundred fifty years of America and ten years of America out loud loud news that's where you come to hear military and intel experts on the national security hour and where you get freedom of speech with liberty and justice for all not like anywhere else this is a once in a lifetime celebration we will have inspiring entertainment incredible fireworks nationally recognized speakers who proudly stand for freedom just like you and us let's unite to salute and celebrate the history of our great nation and collaborate to protect the future join us and register now at america out loud dot news Nashville are you struggling with thinning hair try roots from the wellness company this doctor formulated non oily hydrogel uses seven powerful peptides and key nutrients to nourish your scalp and support visibly thicker healthier hair visit

20:07twc dot health forward slash out loud news code out loud for 20% off your first order that is twc dot health forward slash out loud you wouldn't go a day without brushing your teeth or washing your hands what about washing your nose I mean your nose does filter the air you breathe air loaded with bacteria viruses and irritants make nasal hygiene part of your routine with clear no messy bottles to fill no drowning sensation clear as a natural drug free saline with the added benefit of zyletal which blocks bacterial and viral adhesion available in stores and online at clear.com 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

21:08regeneration 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

22:15really 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

23:17remember 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

24:21the 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

25:25used 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

26:25that 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

27:32that 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

28:35some 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

29:39talk 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

30:44question 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

31:47till 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

32:50worried 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

33:56level 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

34:59pilot 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

36:02but 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

37:08something 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

38:12those 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

39:15that 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 energy and constantly feeling hungry want to save money on the rising cost of groceries and dramatically improve your health go to chemicalfreebody.com forward slash out loud today get nature's super multivitamin doctor formulated green 85 juice formula empower your immune system cut your grocery bill and save 20% on your first order the smartest food on the planet doesn't come from a lab or in a package it grows in a class jar I'm Doug Evans author of the national bestseller the

40:19spout book sprouts deliver up to a hundred times the antioxidants of mature vegetables they grow in just three to five days for under a dollar serving get your spouting kit at the spouting company dot com slash out loud use the code out loud for an exclusive offer gross smarter 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

41:30um 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

42:35pesticide 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

43:44doesn'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

44:46from 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

45:50number 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

46:52why 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

47:55get 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

48:57regeneration 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

50:02the 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

51:10the 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

52:15it 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

53:20of 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

54:26but 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

55:27to 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

56:27alternative 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