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OP-ED: FARMERS DEMAND ACCOUNTABILITY IN CHECKOFF PROGRAMS
Aug. 28, 2023
By Angela Huffman, VP of Farm Action Fund as it appeared in Agri-Pulse
In his July 25th op ed, "Once again big government comes for farmers and ranchers," CEO of the National Cattlemen's Beef Association (NCBA) Colin Woodall shares his fear that "big government" will muck up commodity checkoff programs if lawmakers pursue the Opportunities for Fairness in Farming (OFF) Act: a bipartisan bill that would bring transparency and accountability to checkoff programs.
The thing is, the government was involved in 1985 when it implemented the beef checkoff program. And it was definitely involved in 2005, when the Supreme Court ruled that checkoffs are government speech, set and approved by the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Checkoffs are government programs, so government has a responsibility to provide safeguards for the $1 billion collected from America's farmers, ranchers, and producers annually.
Mr. Woodall proclaims that current law already prohibits the use of checkoff dollars to lobby, so the bill is unnecessary. However, this prohibition hasn't stopped the line between checkoff boards and lobbying groups from blurring: Some, such as the blueberry checkoff and lobbying organization, share staff, board members, and even office buildings.
The close relationships have enabled a history of misuse of checkoff funds and other scandals, and the primary beef checkoff contractor, the NCBA, was caught using checkoff funds for policy activity by a spot audit in 2010. Even if these were isolated incidents, the fact remains that the influence lobbying groups wield on Capitol Hill as the public-facing representatives of their industries' checkoff programs is just as fungible as money.
At the root of this chronic corruption is the fact that the government is passing these funds through lobbying-oriented middlemen like NCBA on the way to supporting the important functions of research and promotion. The OFF Act would prevent checkoff dollars from being contracted to lobbying organizations in the first place. This would not only be more efficient, it would also assure farmers that no conflicts of interest exist. The OFF Act respects the research our universities and land grant institutions have done on behalf of agricultural producers by providing an exception for them.
To read the entire op-ed click here.
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