Baylen Linnekin
Last week, a federal court in Montana handed an important victory to opponents of USDA checkoff programs. As I describe in my recent book, Biting the Hands that Feed Us,
USDA checkoff programs exist for dairy, beef, pork, and poultry, among
other foods. They require ranchers and farmers to pay for collective
marketing of their products. The USDA argues the mandatory collectivist
marketing empowers businesses. Critics disagree. In the Montana case, the federal court granted a preliminary injunction to the plaintiff, the Ranchers-Cattlemen Action Legal Fund (R-CALF), a nonprofit advocacy group that represents independent ranchers, farmers, and cattlemen. R-CALF argued the USDA Beef Checkoff Program violates the First
Amendment because it forces R-CALF members to subsidize
speech—specifically, advertising—paid for by the private Montana Beef
Council. The U.S. District Court agreed,
granting R-CALF a preliminary injunction and barring the Montana Beef
Council from using any funds "it collects under the Beef Checkoff
Program to fund its advertising campaigns" without prior consent from
the farmer or rancher who pays the state beef council..."As a result of the preliminary injunction" issued by the federal court in June, reports
the Montana Beef Council, "after assessments are collected from Montana
beef producers, if they do not provide prior affirmative consent to the
Montana Beef Council, their full assessment will be forwarded to the
Cattlemen's Beef Board for general use on national programs and
projects." In other words, the federal court didn't declare the beef checkoff
program unconstitutional. Rather, it determined that all of the
mandatory payment must go to the federal program, unless the payer first
consents to the use of funds by the state beef council...Congress is also currently looking at ways it can rein in the silly,
wasteful checkoff programs. Earlier this year, Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT) and
Sen. Cory Booker (D-NJ) introduced the Opportunities for Fairness in
Farming Act, to improve the transparency of checkoff programs. "Senator Lee also introduced a far more radical bill, the Voluntary
Checkoff Program Participation Act, which would end mandatory
participation in checkoff programs entirely," I wrote in a New Food Economy piece last month. The money that currently flows to the entities that manage these
checkoff programs—including beef—isn't small potatoes. Estimates show
these programs take "approximately $750 million per year from U.S. farmers and ranchers."
Issues of concern to people who live in the west: property rights, water rights, endangered species, livestock grazing, energy production, wilderness and western agriculture. Plus a few items on western history, western literature and the sport of rodeo... Frank DuBois served as the NM Secretary of Agriculture from 1988 to 2003. DuBois is a former legislative assistant to a U.S. Senator, a Deputy Assistant Secretary of Interior, and is the founder of the DuBois Rodeo Scholarship.
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It just galls me when foreign beeves are promoted alongside the domestic product. What flabbergasts me even further is that the average producer has no concept of the issues at hand and drools on cue for the nice men.....soapweed
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