North Dakota farmers feeling effects of Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s health kick
Secretary of U.S. Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr. speaks at the Rx and Illicit Drug Summit at the Gaylord Opryland Resort & Convention Center in Nashville, Tennessee, on April 24, 2025. (John Partipilo/Tennessee Lookout)
Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s push to 'Make America Healthy Again' is making some North Dakota farmers queasy.
Kennedy's MAHA movement shuns highly processed foods and dyes. But it also includes an attack on oils made from seeds such as sunflowers and canola, with North Dakota being a leading producer of those specialty crops.
These oils are among what has become known as the 'Hateful Eight,' oils from canola, corn, cottonseed, grapeseed, soy, rice bran, sunflower and safflower targeted by the MAHA movement.
During a roundtable discussion last week in Fargo with Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins, representatives of crops such as sunflowers, canola, soybeans and lentils said the MAHA movement is troubling for their members.
Rollins is part of a MAHA Commission, created by President Donald Trump, with Kennedy as the chair.
John Sandbakken is executive director of the National Sunflower Association, headquartered in North Dakota but representing growers around the country. He said he has heard from farmers in multiple states concerned about the Rollins' role on the MAHA Commission, led by Kennedy.
'There's a lot of misinformation out on the internet about seed oils, and we are hoping, as groups, that you will be a strong advocate for seed oils and the healthy benefits that they do bring to our consumers,' Sandbakken said.
Rollins responded that Kennedy is a 'unique voice.'
'My commitment is to be a vigorous and persistent advocate for all agriculture, including the great people that you represent,' Rollins said.
The American Heart Institute is among the groups siding with seed oils advocates that they are healthy.
Kennedy is backing beef tallow, a cooking oil that fell out of favor for being high in saturated fat.
US ag secretary hears concerns about federal staff cuts during North Dakota visit
An oil that is low in saturated fat is canola oil.
Tim Mickelson, a Rolla farmer who is president of the U.S. Canola Association, encouraged Rollins to 'follow the science' on health and ag research.
Mickelson said he fears the anti-seed oil movement is gaining momentum among consumers, which is just one of the problems facing canola growers.
Mickelson farms near the U.S. border with Canada, where most canola is grown.
He said canola prices in the U.S. follow the prices on Winnipeg Commodity Exchange and prices are also affected by the Canadian dollar.
'So if you're pushing ideas of a tariff on Canada, and it's hitting canola, you're going to hit the futures price negatively. You're also going to hit the Canadian dollar negatively,' Mickelson said. 'So canola is getting a double whammy.'
He said even the rumors of tariffs hurt the canola market. 'Anytime somebody would sneeze on the Winnipeg Commodity Exchange about a tariff, canola would just be plummeting down,' Mickelson said.
He said the market fell about 20% in March as tariffs with Canada were making headlines.
'Anything that disrupts the flow of canola between the United States and Canada is detrimental to the entire industry,' Mickelson said.
While the canola market has rebounded, he said the tariff talk and market drop was happening as farmers were making final decisions about what to plant in the 2025 growing season.
The United States had a record year for canola production in 2024, most of it coming from North Dakota, according to the U.S. Canola Association. There were 2.7 million acres planted to canola in 30 states last year, led by North Dakota with more than 2.1 million acres.
Mickelson said with farmers concerned about changing consumer demand for canola oil and the timing of the tariff talk, canola acres could be down by 20% this year.
Mickelson said he was grateful that Rollins came to North Dakota.
'I think she has very good intentions on taking what we talked about today and trying to implement the things that need to be changed,' Mickelson said, but acknowledged that she has less influence on the MAHA movement than the health secretary.
'That's a big challenge,' Mickelson said.
SUPPORT: YOU MAKE OUR WORK POSSIBLE
SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
2 hours ago
What to know about the Group of Seven summit in Canada that Trump will attend
TORONTO -- U.S. President Donald Trump will arrive Sunday for a Group of Seven summit in a country he has suggested should be annexed and as he wages a trade war with America's longstanding allies. Trump's calls to make Canada the 51st U.S. state have infuriated Canadians, and Prime Minister Mark Carney, who won his office by pledging to confront the U.S. president's increased aggression, now hosts the G7 summit. Carney asserted this week that Washington no longer plays a predominant role on the world stage, imposing tariffs for access to its markets and reducing its contributions to collective security. Carney has decided to abandon the annual practice of issuing a lengthy joint statement, or communiqué, at the summit's conclusion as French President Emmanuel Macron did at the G7 summit in France in 2019. The document typically outlines the consensus reached by leaders on summit issues and provides a roadmap for how they plan to tackle them. Trump roiled the 2017 meeting in Italy over the climate change passage in that summit's final statement. He then withdrew his support from the 2018 communiqué after complaining he had been slighted by then Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, the host that year. The leaders of the world's richest countries begin arriving Sunday in the resort town of Kananaskis, Alberta in the Canadian Rockies. The Group of Seven comprises Canada, the United States, France, Italy, Japan, Germany and Britain. The European Union also attends as well as other heads of state who are not part of the G7 but have been invited by Carney. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy will attend and is expected to meet with Trump, a reunion coming just months after their contentious Oval Office encounter, which laid bare the risks of having a meeting with the U.S. president. Other world leaders will be meeting with Trump both in a group setting and for bilateral talks, which are often precarious as foreign leaders must navigate between placating and confronting him. 'Anything could happen. The Canadians would be crazy not to anticipate something. We can't tell. That's Trump stock and trade. He likes to keep everyone guessing,' said Robert Bothwell, a University of Toronto professor of Canadian history and international relations. 'It all depends what kind of theater he's going to want to have,' he said. Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum will attend and said she expects to have her first in-person meeting with Trump. On his way to Canada, Macron is making a notable stop in Greenland, the semi autonomous Danish territory that the U.S. president has also suggested annexing. Among the other newcomers are German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, Prime Minister Keir Starmer and Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba. Starmer will meet with Carney on Saturday in Ottawa before flying to Alberta. Carney also invited Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, despite accusations from Canada's national police force that agents of Modi's government were involved in 'widespread' violence in Canada. Saudi Arabia's Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the kingdom's de facto ruler, was invited but will not attend. The 2018 G7 summit in Quebec was thrown into disarray after Trump called Trudeau 'dishonest' and 'weak," while complaining that he had been blindsided by Trudeau's criticism of Trump's tariff threats at a summit-ending news conference. Trump pulled out of the G7 group statement just as it was released. 'We weren't too happy because we thought we managed to pull off a pretty good summit,' said Peter Boehm, Canada's deputy minister for the Quebec summit." The reaction — and I was with Mr. Trudeau at the time — was a bit of disbelief." Boehm expects a chair's summary from Carney this year instead of a joint statement from the leaders. During the Quebec summit, Trump also insisted on Russia's readmission to the elite group, from which it was ousted in 2014 following President Vladimir Putin's annexation of Crimea. 'Trump raised that at the foreign policy dinner," Boehm recalled. 'It was a bit awkward because British Prime Minister Theresa May was there and some British citizens had just been killed by Russian operatives using a toxic agent.' Former Russian spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter, Yulia, were targeted in a nerve agent attack a few months before the Quebec summit in the English city of Salisbury. U.S. Ambassador to Canada Pete Hoekstra has said that Carney has been quietly holding direct talks with Trump about a trade deal in the lead up to the summit. Separately, top Canadian cabinet ministers have also been in Washington for negotiations in recent weeks. Trade tensions may be unavoidable. The United States runs trade deficits with all G7 countries except the United Kingdom. In an effort to balance what he describes as America's lopsided trade relations, Trump has imposed 10% import taxes — tariffs — on almost every country in the world. He also announced bigger tariffs, then suspended them, on countries that sell more to the United States than they buy. 'The big X Factor (is) the looming tariffs,' said Max Bergmann of the Center for Strategic and International Studies. 'The G7 is supposed to provide global economic governance. And the way the Europeans see it right now is that the country that's the source of major instability in global economic affairs is the United States.'' Trump's trade wars are already threatening the world economy. The World Bank on Tuesday sharply downgraded its forecast for global economic growth this year, citing 'a substantial rise in trade barriers.'' NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte will attend the G7 meeting ahead of this month's NATO summit and has said most U.S. allies in the alliance endorse Trump's demand that they invest 5% of gross domestic product on their defense needs. Carney said this week Canada would meet NATO's current 2% target but seemed to suggest he would not support 5%, saying his goal is to protect Canadians, and not to satisfy NATO accountants. Law enforcement overseeing security expect large protests but say protesters won't be able to get anywhere near Kananaskis, as access roads to the summit will be closed to the public. The Mounties say there will be designated G7 demonstration zones in Calgary and Banff, Alberta that will have live audio and video feeds, which will be broadcast to G7 leaders and delegations at the summit. Kananaskis also hosted a G8 summit in 2002.
Hamilton Spectator
2 hours ago
- Hamilton Spectator
Canadians favour other countries over Donald Trump's America, survey suggests
As G7 leaders gather in Kananaskis, Alta., a new poll suggests Canadians are souring on the U.S. and embracing relations with other world powers. The Pollara Strategic Insights survey found net impressions of the U.S. have plunged since President Donald Trump returned to office in January. At the same time, Canadians are feeling positive about the other G7 member nations: Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom, France and Germany. 'We've kind of lost our best friend in the United States and maybe, as a country, Canada is now looking toward some of its older friends to reconnect with as a result of that,' said Dan Arnold, Pollara's chief strategy officer, referring to Trump's tariffs on Canadian goods that have led to a trade war between the neighbouring countries. Indeed, the firm polled people in Canada and the U.K. and found similar results on both sides of the Atlantic. Five out of six Canadians — 83 per cent — said the bilateral relationship with Britain was 'important' with only 17 per cent saying it wasn't. Across the pond, 76 per cent of Britons said their country's relationship with Canada was 'important' while about one in four said it was not. The British have a more positive view of Canada (+78 per cent) than any other country in the poll — ahead of Japan (+61 per cent), Germany (+60 per cent), France (+50 per cent) and Ukraine (+47 per cent). But the poll found they have a negative view toward India (-1 per cent), the U.S. (-3 per cent), China (-24 per cent) and Russia (-63 per cent). Among Canadians, Italy has a +66 per cent favourability rating followed by Japan at +64 per cent, the U.K. at +59 per cent, France at +57 per cent, Germany at +54 per cent and Ukraine at +41 per cent. China was at -27 per cent, India at -29 per cent, the U.S. at -47 per cent and Russia at -63 per cent. That's a 60 percentage point drop in Canadian sentiment toward the American since Pollara's survey last year when Joe Biden was U.S. president. Using online panels, Pollara surveyed 3,400 Canadians on May 16-20. While opt-in polls cannot be assigned a margin of error, for comparison purposes, a random sample of this size would have one of plus or minus 1.7 percentage points, 19 times out of 20. Similarly, the firm polled 2,511 Britons on May 2-16. The margin of error for comparable surveys is within 1.9 percentage points, 19 times out of 20. 'If the Americans aren't going to be the number-one ally in many respects for the next three years (of Trump's presidency) … then the Canada-U.K. relationship is something that bears some noting,' said Arnold, pointing out Canada's recently elected Prime Minister Mark Carney used to be governor of the Bank of England. Because of that, 60 per cent of Britons are familiar with him, and of those, 80 per cent had a positive view of Carney, who succeeded Justin Trudeau as Liberal leader on March 9 and was elected April 28. Just seven per cent had a negative view and the rest had no opinion. British Prime Minister Keir Starmer is not as well known among Canadians. Only 26 per cent were familiar with him. Of those, 58 per cent had a positive view with 30 per cent negative and the remainder had no opinion. That's an overall +28 per cent for Starmer, who won power last summer. The most admired foreign leader among Canadians was Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, who will attend the G7 summit that begins Sunday. Zelenskyy, whose country was invaded by Russia in 2022, was at +53 per cent, ahead of French President Emmanuel Macron (+46 per cent), German Chancellor Friedrich Merz (+33 per cent), Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba (+31 per cent) and Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni (+29 per cent). On the negative side of the ledger, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who will also be at the G7, was at -17 per cent, ahead of Chinese President Xi Jinping (-52 per cent), Trump (-66 per cent) and Russian President Vladimir Putin (-69 per cent). Neither Xi nor Putin was invited to Kananaskis.
San Francisco Chronicle
2 hours ago
- San Francisco Chronicle
What to know about the Group of Seven summit in Canada that Trump will attend
TORONTO (AP) — U.S. President Donald Trump will arrive Sunday for a Group of Seven summit in a country he has suggested should be annexed and as he wages a trade war with America's longstanding allies. Trump's calls to make Canada the 51st U.S. state have infuriated Canadians, and Prime Minister Mark Carney, who won his office by pledging to confront the U.S. president's increased aggression, now hosts the G7 summit. Carney asserted this week that Washington no longer plays a predominant role on the world stage, imposing tariffs for access to its markets and reducing its contributions to collective security. Carney has decided to abandon the annual practice of issuing a lengthy joint statement, or communiqué, at the summit's conclusion as French President Emmanuel Macron did at the G7 summit in France in 2019. The document typically outlines the consensus reached by leaders on summit issues and provides a roadmap for how they plan to tackle them. Trump roiled the 2017 meeting in Italy over the climate change passage in that summit's final statement. He then withdrew his support from the 2018 communiqué after complaining he had been slighted by then Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, the host that year. The leaders of the world's richest countries begin arriving Sunday in the resort town of Kananaskis, Alberta in the Canadian Rockies. Who will attend The Group of Seven comprises Canada, the United States, France, Italy, Japan, Germany and Britain. The European Union also attends as well as other heads of state who are not part of the G7 but have been invited by Carney. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy will attend and is expected to meet with Trump, a reunion coming just months after their contentious Oval Office encounter, which laid bare the risks of having a meeting with the U.S. president. Other world leaders will be meeting with Trump both in a group setting and for bilateral talks, which are often precarious as foreign leaders must navigate between placating and confronting him. 'Anything could happen. The Canadians would be crazy not to anticipate something. We can't tell. That's Trump stock and trade. He likes to keep everyone guessing,' said Robert Bothwell, a University of Toronto professor of Canadian history and international relations. 'It all depends what kind of theater he's going to want to have,' he said. Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum will attend and said she expects to have her first in-person meeting with Trump. On his way to Canada, Macron is making a notable stop in Greenland, the semi autonomous Danish territory that the U.S. president has also suggested annexing. Among the other newcomers are German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, Prime Minister Keir Starmer and Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba. Starmer will meet with Carney on Saturday in Ottawa before flying to Alberta. Carney also invited Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, despite accusations from Canada's national police force that agents of Modi's government were involved in 'widespread' violence in Canada. Saudi Arabia's Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the kingdom's de facto ruler, was invited but will not attend. Will Trump upstage this G7 too? The 2018 G7 summit in Quebec was thrown into disarray after Trump called Trudeau 'dishonest' and 'weak," while complaining that he had been blindsided by Trudeau's criticism of Trump's tariff threats at a summit-ending news conference. Trump pulled out of the G7 group statement just as it was released. 'We weren't too happy because we thought we managed to pull off a pretty good summit,' said Peter Boehm, Canada's deputy minister for the Quebec summit." The reaction — and I was with Mr. Trudeau at the time — was a bit of disbelief." Boehm expects a chair's summary from Carney this year instead of a joint statement from the leaders. During the Quebec summit, Trump also insisted on Russia's readmission to the elite group, from which it was ousted in 2014 following President Vladimir Putin's annexation of Crimea. 'Trump raised that at the foreign policy dinner," Boehm recalled. 'It was a bit awkward because British Prime Minister Theresa May was there and some British citizens had just been killed by Russian operatives using a toxic agent.' Former Russian spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter, Yulia, were targeted in a nerve agent attack a few months before the Quebec summit in the English city of Salisbury. Looming tariffs U.S. Ambassador to Canada Pete Hoekstra has said that Carney has been quietly holding direct talks with Trump about a trade deal in the lead up to the summit. Separately, top Canadian cabinet ministers have also been in Washington for negotiations in recent weeks. Trade tensions may be unavoidable. The United States runs trade deficits with all G7 countries except the United Kingdom. In an effort to balance what he describes as America's lopsided trade relations, Trump has imposed 10% import taxes — tariffs — on almost every country in the world. He also announced bigger tariffs, then suspended them, on countries that sell more to the United States than they buy. 'The big X Factor (is) the looming tariffs,' said Max Bergmann of the Center for Strategic and International Studies. 'The G7 is supposed to provide global economic governance. And the way the Europeans see it right now is that the country that's the source of major instability in global economic affairs is the United States.'' Trump's trade wars are already threatening the world economy. The World Bank on Tuesday sharply downgraded its forecast for global economic growth this year, citing 'a substantial rise in trade barriers.'' A prelude to NATO summit NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte will attend the G7 meeting ahead of this month's NATO summit and has said most U.S. allies in the alliance endorse Trump's demand that they invest 5% of gross domestic product on their defense needs. Carney said this week Canada would meet NATO's current 2% target but seemed to suggest he would not support 5%, saying his goal is to protect Canadians, and not to satisfy NATO accountants. Why such a remote location Law enforcement overseeing security expect large protests but say protesters won't be able to get anywhere near Kananaskis, as access roads to the summit will be closed to the public. The Mounties say there will be designated G7 demonstration zones in Calgary and Banff, Alberta that will have live audio and video feeds, which will be broadcast to G7 leaders and delegations at the summit. Kananaskis also hosted a G8 summit in 2002.
