Don’t Kill the Dandelion Messenger

The Fertilizer Institutes Heralding MAHA's Second Report Brings Attention to Biostimulants That Grateful Graze and Soil Saviors Also Advocate

What if the ubiquitous dandelion plant was not a weed to be destroyed as a pest to the soil it emerges in, but rather a natural, resilient and restorative plant with many soil and human health benefits? What if the dandelion is an abundant plant we should embrace as a soil health monitor and recovery system? What if the dandelion was only one example of many natural or chemical free practices few land owners use to maintain healthy soil?

Ever since I was a child, this little, yellow flower has been demonized and destroyed.

I can remember playfully picking up a dandelion in its seed stage and gently blowing across the top to watch all the seed parachutes beautifully blow away in the wind. Meanwhile, homeowners with lawns are encouraged to despise the dandelion as a weed to be exterminated.

Until recently, I didn’t think this misunderstood flower served any positive agricultural purpose. The dandelion, in fact, is an important messenger because it alerts us that vital nutrients are missing from the soil, and its presence actually improves the soil's health.

Author, teacher, and herbalist Dana O'Driscoll wrote in 2014: “The lawn itself is an attempt to put nature in an unnatural state that requires fossil fuels and many human hours of labor to maintain. The lawn is the largest “crop” in cultivation in the USA, yet it produces no food. The dandelion’s role in the ecosystem is a restorative plant: It comes in and attempts to restore the lawn to a more natural state, to heal the damage that has been done. It does this in at least three ways: through rejuvenating the nutrients in the soil, through reducing soil compaction, and through preventing soil erosion.”

HHS's Updated MAHA Report

On September 9, 2025, the U.S. Health and Human Services agency's Make America Healthy Again (MAHA) commission released the second report for its more than 120 initiatives strategy to address America’s “escalating health crisis and chronic childhood disease epidemic.”

According to the new report, titled the “Make Our Children Healthy Again Strategy,” the MAHA Commission will expand research efforts through the National Institutes of Health and other agencies regarding chronic disease prevention, nutrition, metabolic health, food quality, environmental exposure, autism, the gut microbiome, precision agriculture, rural and Tribal health, vaccines, and mental health.

Hannah Bugas, the Wyoming Livestock Roundup weekly publication 's managing editor wrote days after the updated MAHA report was released, “For the ag industry especially, one of the most notable highlights of the MAHA Commission’s second report is its changed stance on pesticide use. While the first iteration of the report took a hardline restrictive approach to pesticides such as atrazine and glyphosate, the new report focuses largely on “reducing” the use of pesticides instead.

Although the first report drew overwhelming backlash from agricultural stakeholders, the MAHA Commission’s second report has softened tensions with the industry and garnered praise from multiple organizations.

Page six of the report states “Precision Agricultural Technology: USDA and EPA will prioritize research and programs to help growers adopt precision agricultural techniques, including remote sensing and precision application technologies that will further optimize crop applications. The research and programs should emphasize ways in which precision technology can help to decrease pesticide volumes, improve the soil microbiome, and have a significant financial benefit for growers.

Page 18 states “Soil Health and Stewardship of the Land – USDA and EPA will promote and incentivize farming solutions in partnership with the private sector that focus on soil health and stewardship of the land. This will include: Providing growers with new tools to maintain and better enable soil health practices, including practices that increase soil organic matter and improve soil composition.”

Soil Health Public Dialogue

Concurrent with the second MAHA report release, The Fertilizer Institute issued the following statements: “The Fertilizer Institute (TFI) welcomes the opportunity to make soil health a larger part of the public dialogue concerning agriculture and the overall health of the American people.

"American agriculture shares many of the MAHA movement’s goals, such as improving the health of our children, as well as ensuring we are taking great care of the health of our land. We are only as healthy as the soil our food comes from and there is a role to play for both industry and the public sector.

"TFI has for years been supportive of and actively promotes both expanded farmer adoption of 4R nutrient stewardship plans and the implementation of other conservation practices such as the use of cover crops and no-till farming. TFI has promoted stewardship practices through the ongoing 4R Advocate program, as well as the industry’s collective goal of having 70 million acres of US cropland under 4R nutrient stewardship management by the year 2030.

"Congress can help promote healthy living and farming by ensuring that conservation funding and a focus on grower education and adoption of nutrient stewardship practices remain a cornerstone of the ongoing Farm Bill discussions.

"TFI thanks the Trump Administration and the MAHA Caucus for the opportunity to provide feedback and insights into the report and looks forward to continuing towards our shared goal of healthy soils and healthy Americans.”

The Fertilizer Institute (TFI) is the leading voice of the nation’s fertilizer industry. Tracing its roots back to 1883, TFI’s membership includes fertilizer producers, wholesalers, retailers and trading firms. TFI’s full-time staff, based in Washington, D.C., serves its members through legislative, educational, technical, economic information and public communication programs.

The 4Rs: Right Source, Right Rate, Right Time, and Right Place

The membership based organization states, “Decades of scientific investment by the fertilizer industry led to the development of the 4R Nutrient Stewardship Framework – applying the right nutrient source, at the right rate, at the right time, and in the right place. This approach, rigorously validated through research, is now widely recognized by growers, the agricultural industry, policymakers, and federal agencies as an effective conservation practice. The impact of this research is tangible: the 4R principles enable growers to increase crop yields while minimizing resource use, reducing costs, and mitigating negative environmental impacts such as nutrient runoff. What began as a scientific initiative has become a cornerstone of sustainable and regenerative agriculture, informing industry standards and public policy across the United States.”

Chemicals and Biolstimulants

TFI's Nutrient Science web page lays out what fertilizers are made of, stating, “Although about 78 percent of the air we breathe is nitrogen, many plants cannot get their nitrogen out of the atmosphere. It has to come through other means. Even then, turning the organic nitrogen into a form which the plants can absorb is a long, complicated process. With the application of nitrogen in the form of ammonium or nitrates, farmers can supply their crops with all the nitrogen they need. It takes a few chemical processes to turn the phosphorus fertilizer into a form that can be absorbed by plants.

Further reactions with ammonia can produce fertilizers containing both phosphorus and nitrogen in one product. Several chemical combinations are used to convert the potassium into plant food, including potassium chloride, potassium sulfate and potassium nitrate.

In 2020, TFI announced that it and the Biostimulant Coalition (formed in 2011) had reached a formal agreement to form a “Biostimulant Council” and work together to advance policy and regulatory frameworks that increase biostimulant market access and encourage research and innovation. The Biostimulant Coalition is a non-profit group of interested parties cooperating to proactively address regulatory and legislative issues involving biological or naturally derived additives, including but not limited to bacterial or microbial inoculants, biochemical materials, amino acids, humic acids, fulvic acid, seaweed extract and other similar materials.”

Grateful Grazing Leads to Healthy Soil in Cambridge, Illinois

When it comes to crop farming, Monte Bottens says conventional modern large scale operations over practice putting “more-on” in terms of fertilizers and pesticides to increase yields at the expense of long term soil health. Monte and Robyn Bottens are sixth generation farmers in Cambridge, Illinois, who are passionate and dedicated to regenerative crop and animal farming. Ranch 226 is their homestead where they raise pastured chicken and eggs, grass-fed and grass-finished beef and lamb, and timbered pork raised in a woodland area. They also farm 2500 acres of Non-GMO Corn, Non-GMO Soybeans, Winter Wheat, Triticale, Winter Barley, Summer Forage Cover Crops, and Winter Cover Crops. Half of their corn is milled and sent to Italy to make Barilla brand products and half of their corn is exported (mostly to Japan) for livestock feed or human consumption.

He got started down this regenerative path because of a sincere and passionate interest in soil health. What we do today to the soil, he says, is going to impact the generations to come. So they practice regenerative agriculture farming techniques such as minimizing soil disturbance, diversifying what they grow, maintaining a living root, and integrating livestock back into the land. These techniques will make the soil better for those who will come after us. Monte uses a combination of commercial/commodity fertilizers and the specialty biological and nutrition products he developed with Ag Solutions Network. (ASN.farm) The key is we need farmers using better products and lower fertilizer rates. Another important reason was to improve his wife’s health. She was able to overcome a disease that was attacking her body by implementing grass-fed protein into her diet, proving to her physicians that there was a cure to what was ailing her.

Both Monte and Robyn recognize that everything is connected from the soil microbiome, to the plants, to the animals, to the food we eat. Everyone’s food choices create the system we want. The system is built to supply cheap food, but healthier food costs more. Consumerism causes us to paint ourselves into a “buy cheap” corner. And overly busy schedules forces people to prepare easy food. But cheap and easy are the opposite of good and healthy. When people spend their money and their time on a health-first approach instead of a pill-later approach, farming and the food system will change to reflect the thing we value most: an abundant life.

For example, the Bottens move their animals to fresh grass or fresh timber daily or even every couple of hours. This kind of regenerative agriculture allows the grass to regenerate the soil by making it more nutrient dense. This eliminates the need for antibiotics, pesticides, dewormer, and insecticides, all by allowing the animals to do what they do naturally. The Bottens claim this healthier approach also increases the foods' tastes.

Grateful Graze's Five Soil Health Principles

On the 150-year-old farm, Monte and Robyn stick to the following practices:

(1) Minimize disturbance: Do less to the land to add less to the crop.

(2) Keep the soil covered at all times to avoid erosion or loss.

(3) Maximize diversity by growing something other than just corn and soybeans. Bottens Family Farm still grows corn and soybeans but added wheat, cover crop mixes, and grazing livestock to what was once a monocrop system.

(4) Maintain a living root by having something growing at all times. Anytime the temperature is above 32 degrees you want roots growing, that adds carbon and nutrient to the soil.

(5) Integrating livestock back into the land serves a valuable role in improving soil health and the nutrient density of the foods that we eat.

By stacking these enterprises, Monte and Robyn keep more of the production, processing, marketing, and distribution within their farm. This captures the margin made on these steps and allows them to choose their marketing price versus choosing to sell to the big four grain buyers, big four meat packers or buy inputs from the big three suppliers. The QC Farmers Market in Rock Island is one sales channel for their meat, and you can also order their products from the Web site GratefulGraze.com.

The Fertilizer Institute states controlling the right fertilizer source involves evaluating and responding to a number of factors including soil, physical, and chemical properties, blend compatibility, and the availability of on-farm sources of nutrients. Right rate involves assessing plant nutrient demand, soil nutrient supply including the availability of nutrients in manure, compost, crop residues, and more. Right time includes assessing the timing of plant nutrient uptake as well as the dryness of soil nutrient supply. Right place is positioning needed nutrient supplies strategically, so that plants develop properly and achieve their yield potential.

Bottens says, “The 4Rs are a great practice and we have been doing it for years. Rate, form, timing, and placement. However, lip service versus actual impact are two different things. My perception of it is this is a way to make it seem as though we are judiciously using fertilizer. If that were true, there wouldn’t be enough nitrate in the Iowa River to fertilize 28 percent of its watershed. Tons of fertilizer go out the door while TFI supplies copious amounts of funding to research universities for the answers that they want, such as their ability to put more chemically treated fertilizers and herbicides on the fields with little regulation. But he says having a more-on mentality is leading to a gross over application of nitrogen to the crops.

Iowa River Watershed Study

As an example, Bottens cited a November 20, 2025 online article by Dr. Chris Jones titled “Agriculture Degrades the Livability of Iowa.” Jones wrote the 2023 book The Swine Republic. His recent Substack article states, in part: “The average load (amount of nitrate-N transported by the Iowa River basin) for the past eight years was 118 million pounds, which is enough nitrogen to fertilize 800,000 acres of corn. That’s an area of land 35 miles x 35 miles. The amount of nitrogen leaving the watershed is enough to fertilize 28 percent of the corn acres in the watershed. So agriculture is wasting almost 30 percent of their product in this basin. And herein lies the problem: Farmers have been conditioned by the industry and their lackeys in the universities to focus on yield and not return. Practical Farmers of Iowa recently conducted a “reduced N rate study” and found 86 percent of the studied farms increased revenue by reducing nitrogen fertilizer application rates. So why doesn't the larger body of farmers embrace the reduced application rate strategy? The conventional wisdom is because they’re willing to trade increases in long-term income for less year-to-year variability. And surprise, surprise, users of commodity grains like predictability too. You and your water are the collateral damage.” (Read Jones' full article at RiverRaccoom.substack.com/p/agriculture-degrades-the-livability.)

In other words, the over-application of ammonia nitrate is polluting our waterways. If you look at the research that is sponsored by the Fertilizer Institute and developed by their universities, they allow up to 8 pounds of nitrogen to gain the very last bushel of yield. That is an 8:1 ratio compared to Monte’s 0.6 to 0.7 pounds of nitrogen per bushel of corn.

“Economic Optimum Nitrogen Rate (EONR). The EONR is the point, identified in an N rate trial, at which the last pound of applied nitrogen produces just enough extra yield to pay for that pound of nitrogen. If a pound of N costs 40 cents and corn sells for $4.00 per bushel, the last pound of N needs to increase the yield by 1/10th of a bushel in order to pay for that pound of nitrogen. Here is a link to the presentation that explains it: https://ifca.com/media/web/1537906005_NREC%20MRTN%20GUIDE%20Sept%202018.pdf

Bottens laments that “This kind of over application of nitrogen should not be acceptable to anyone, not to the farmers, not to the lobbyists, not to the readers, and not to the Fertilizer Institute.” Regardless, Bottens remains hopeful about more small farmers and organic growers utilizing chemical-free inputs and recognizing the much maligned dandelion’s importance to healthy soil. One such colleague in these endeavors is a native Quad Citian most know for his accomplishments in the mixed martial arts world, the UFC hall of famer and coach to 13 world champions, Pat Miletich.

Pat Miletich, the Organic Super Soldier of Soil Saviors

After 40 years of research, Miletich co-founded a self-supporting (508c) ministry this year called Soil Saviors that incorporates organic matter back into the soil by adding 90 essential elements and minerals with a diversity of non-GMO soil borne probiotics. There are no chemicals used in any of Miletichs' products.

The nutrients come in a box as a fine black powder and are easily mixed with water and then sprayed onto the depleted area. Each box has seven separate components of both packages of powder and bottles. The fulvic humic acid component in Soil Saviors boxes contains 77 colloid minerals and elements for far better genetic expression and immune function in soil and plants. So essentially humates contain the very minerals needed to assist life on earth to regain its proper genetic expression and immune function and at the same time increases microbial populations. Germ theory kills life with chemicals versus assisting in its diversity, which is the very core of life itself.

Pat got involved in researching natural elements for his own health reasons as he suffered severe respiratory illness as a child. He spent a lot of time on family farms in Southern Iowa as a youngster that exposed him to chemicals that caused serious health problems. He wanted to be great at athletics but he was only as good as his respiratory system would allow him to be. At about the age of 19 or 20, he started doing his own research because the physicians were not able to help him. He put together a natural protocol of some organic concentrated elements that allowed his respiratory system to heal in just 10 days. He was then able to breathe easily and cleared up his lungs to be able to do some unique things in his athletic career.

Pat works with Dr. Wil Spencer (naturopath-soil-to-human health expert) and states that he has confirmed a lot of his research because the doctor understands both sides of the table, synthetic chemicals versus natural organic organism processes and what is detrimental for better soil and improved overall health. Organic molecules such as humic and fulvic acids play an important role in restoring depleted soil and strengthening our immune system. They can be both added to the soil and taken in a supplement form.

Humic and fulvic acids are complex organic molecules found in decomposed plant and animal matter in the soil. They improve soil health by binding to nutrients, making them more bioavailable for plant uptake. This improves soil structure and water retention, which helps the plants tolerate stress and other environmental factors. Fulvic acid is a smaller molecule than humic. In terms of human cellular health, fulvic repairs cellular operations internally and humic protects the outside of the cell. Nutrient dense soil increases yield and growth with good tasting and resilient plants that have strong immune systems that transfer to better human health.

Soil Saviors uses several sources of minerals and nutrients as well as a diversity of sources and location environments where the microbes were originally derived. There is a specific sedimentary layer that is utilized beneath peat bogs from locations on the planet that are unaffected by industrial or agricultural chemicals. There is enough fulvic humic on the planet to assist in healing the earth one thousand times.

Pat explains that Soil Saviors is a self-supporting (508c) ministry that employs only naturally derived elements and soil borne, non-GMO probiotics. They strictly operate in the private sector with individuals and organizations that have only the purest intentions to heal the earth and mankind and leave a better planet for our children. They are not a business in the public sector, therefore to purchase any of Soil or Cell Saviors’ products, one must join the Private Ministerial Association at no charge.

The Processing Is Important

Miletich points out that most extraction processes will use hydrochloric acids to remove the fulvic humic from the peat or the fossilized rock or soft coal, and what that does is throw the biology or bacteria out of balance, and that is how nature fights back. You will have an explosion of certain bacteria to digest the synthetic chemicals and harmful elements that mankind has created and put into the environment. He explains this is what happens in Iowa lakes when there is an E.coli overgrowth.

Lifeless Products

Unfortunately, most companies pasteurize their product and remove all the life from the fulvic humic acid. According to Pat, the vitality of a substance is its bioavailability and is it technically still alive. Destroying microorganisms, bacteria, and fungi is detrimental to human health.

Soil Saviors concentrates on collecting the most nutrient dense sources, the most bioavailable sources by way of a natural extraction process that keeps those microorganisms intact and pristine. The way Pat sees it, from his 40 years of research, is that chronic disease is simply a host of symptoms that our traditional healthcare system names and then uses to create a synthetic drug to treat those symptoms.

He strongly believes that the environment is the controller of genetic expression and immune function. All Americans suffer from nutrient deficiencies and toxicities. When we understand this principle and this fact about the environment and the soil, we understand how to address it with the right substances and the diversity of soil borne probiotics that we are supposed to be getting from our food but are not, because the traditional synthetic fertilizers have damaged the soil. Whatever input or chemicals that we put into the soil are going to end up in our food, water, and air.

TFI: Technology to Measure Soil Health “Not Quite There”

I spoke with Ed Thomas, Vice President of Government Affairs for the Fertilizer Institute on their response to the second MAHA report. During our discussion about the effects of fertilizer crop runoff, he mentioned that high levels of nitrate in the water supply can lead to blue baby syndrome. Upon my own research, I found this syndrome can be caused by a baby drinking contaminated water from private wells that are converted to nitrites in an infant’s body. Nitrites interfere with the blood’s ability to carry oxygen, leading to a bluish skin discoloration. One possible source of contamination is excess fertilizer application which can lead to high nitrate levels in groundwater and surface water.

When asked about chemicals used in the extraction process, he states that with substances such as potash, they just beneficiate or treat raw material to improve its properties. He explained, on the other hand, that phosphate used in fertilizer is bound up and has to be released for uptake in the plant by adding sulfuric acid. According to the UN Environment Programme’s article https://www.unep.org/news-and-stories/story/what-phosphorus-and-why-are-concerns-mounting-about-its-environmental-impact, phosphorus and another nutrient, nitrogen, are key ingredients in synthetic fertilizers. They have become increasingly popular in recent decades but can have devastating effects when they enter, lakes, rivers, and the ocean.

The Fertilizer Institute has promoted stewardship practices through the ongoing 4R advocate program, as well as the collective goal of having 70 million acres of U.S. cropland under 4R nutrient stewardship management by the year 2030. When asked about how they intend to reach that goal, Thomas said, it is highly dependent on the state, the soil, the crop, and the weather. How you feed that particular farmer’s field has to be developed individually for that field based on these variables. As far as measuring the soil to determine its overall health improvement, Thomas said, “the technology isn’t quite there yet.”

Farm Subsidies for Natural Non-Chemical Inputs and Non-GMO Seeds and Microbes

Miletich take on TFI's association with the second MAHA report was, “I think the 4Rs is an attempt by big Ag chemical companies to present a forward facing, responsible wrap on their products and their usage. They are in their own way admitting to negative environmental impacts and do feel this allows for a higher-level conversation. An expert like Monte can enter the picture, come in and refine this down to proven methods at the big Ag level. Ultimately make sense of things for agronomists and farmers who aren’t familiar with the options he is an expert with.

“If subsidies for farmers are to continue, it must be for remineralization of the soil using natural inputs and non-GMO seeds and microbes. This, of course, would need to be paired with dialing back the power of banks, chemical corporations, and insurers to force farmers to use their programs to get loans and insurance in the first place. There are many connecting pieces to this puzzle and there is no way one man can go up against these monolithic corporations. This is why I decided that educating the millions of gardeners, orchard, and land owners was my best approach to positively affect the systems from the outside.

“Basically, get enough people educated enough to walk away and allow the chemical modules to falter under their own weight. To be clear, big Ag chemicals are warfare chemicals and antibiotics designed to destroy life and must be phased out of use all together in a sensible way to allow farmers time to catch up to a guy like Monte, who has been practicing stewardship at a large scale in his operations and educational programs.”

[River Cities' Reader publisher Todd McGreevy also contributed some reporting to this article.]