Thirty-eight farm groups signed on to a letter to the ranking members of the House Agriculture Committee urging them to oppose a farm bill amendment that would more stringently regulate commodity checkoff programs. The amendment, introduced by Reps. Dave Brat, a Virginia Republican, and Earl Blumenauer, an Oregon Democrat, is intended to prohibit anti-competitive behavior by checkoff programs.
Many of the farm groups that signed the letter administer or receive funding from checkoff taxes. The groups wrote to committee chair Michael Conaway or Texas and Collin Peterson of Minnesota, the ranking Democrat, that the Brat-Blumenauer amendment would “impose unnecessary, duplicative, and counterproductive burdens on programs funded completely by producers with their own money.”
“The amendment allegedly aims to improve the transparency and accountability of commodity checkoff programs, but should be soundly rejected because it takes control away from producers and will gut the programs that U.S. agriculture relies on to build demand for our products,” the groups wrote.
Not all farm groups agree that the amendment would detrimentally affect producers. The Organization for Competitive Markets, a pro-competition rancher advocacy group, applauded the proposed amendment. “America’s family farmers deserve nothing less than the assurance that their tax dollars are being spent appropriately,” the OCM said in a statement. “Allowing trade and lobbying organizations to receive these funds and use them to advocate against the very farmers who are paying the tax must end. We call on all members of Congress to vote yes on this amendment and restore integrity to the checkoff programs.”
Checkoff programs, particularly the beef checkoff program, have been controversial among farmers. Some farmers have alleged that checkoff funds are illegally spent on lobbying and political activity. In Ohio, those claims were bolstered when ranchers discovered that the state’s beef checkoff administrator and its cattle lobby were functioning as the same organization.