Thursday, May 12, 2016

R-CALF sues USDA to end Beef Checkoff

The Rancher’s Cattlemen’s Action Legal Fund, United Stockgrowers of America (R-CALF), filed suit May 2 in U.S. District Court in Montana, challenging the government’s oversight of the Beef Checkoff Program. R-CALF claims its members 1st Amendment rights are being denied because they are forced to pay into Montana’s Beef Council without a voice in its marketing strategy. The national Beef Checkoff Program, which collected more than $80 million in FY 2015, is used unconstitutionally, R-CALF claims, to promote international beef. In a press release, R-CALF USA says  that while its members must pay into the $1 per head Checkoff program, those funds are used to convince consumers that beef from R-CALF members’ cattle – raised domestically and in compliance with rigorous standards concerning safety, treatment and quality – is no different than beef produced under far less stringent procedures abroad...more

The  lawsuit is embedded below:

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