The 2026 farm bill now working its way through Congress contains a number of provisions at odds with the Make America Healthy Again movement, particularly when it comes to pesticides and factory farming. One less-noticed amendment would allow tobacco farmers to receive more disaster and emergency funds — a move critics say is out of step with public health goals and MAHA’s vow to lower chronic disease rates in the U.S.
The amendment, introduced by Rep. David Rouzer (R-N.C.) earlier this month, would make tobacco farmers eligible for aid from the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Commodity Credit Corporation. Tobacco farmers have been excluded from receiving those funds since the end of the federal tobacco program, which ran from 1938 to 2004.
