We’ve all heard and seen the ads for promotional campaigns like “Beef. It’s What’s for Dinner” and “Pork. The Other White Meat.” They’re the product of one of the most corrupt institutions in American agriculture: commodity checkoff programs.

First begun as a way for farmers to voluntarily pool their money to boost the overall sales of their products, checkoff programs have evolved into a behind-the-scenes government machine extracting money from farmers against their will — and then funneling it to corporate lobbyists.

America’s farmers and ranchers are being forced to pay into checkoff programs, only to see their dollars used against them by lobbying organizations representing the world’s largest meatpackers and grain traders.

The organization Farm Action has cataloged some of the most egregious checkoff abuses:

NCBA Caught Misusing Checkoff Funds for Lobbying, Vacations

* In 2010, an independent audit examining the equivalent of just nine days of beef checkoff program spending found that the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association (NCBA) had improperly spent more than $200,000 in checkoff funds on lobbying and overseas vacations. Despite a Freedom of Information Act complaint, the full audit has not been released to the public.

Between 2012-2024, NCBA has given Fischer $34,104 in campaign cash. NCBA expends its considerable resources and powerful influence on lobbying initiatives, working to defeat policies that would threaten the dominance of multinational meatpackers while improving competition and market opportunities for independent producers. In 2015, NCBA successfully lobbied to kill Mandatory Country of Origin Labeling (MCOOL) for beef, which was a powerful marketing tool for independent American ranchers to distinguish their products from lower quality imported meat sold by giant meatpackers like JBS or Cargill.

Their more recent efforts to defeat the bipartisan Opportunities for Fairness in Farming (OFF) Act are clearly motivated by self-interest: The OFF Act would prevent checkoff funds from being awarded to lobbying groups, and 70 percent of NCBA’s budget is derived from checkoff funds.

Ranchers know very well who NCBA works for and matters to them, and in fact, only three percent choose to be dues paying members. Still, the government forces the other 97 percent to fund NCBA through checkoffs.

Pork Checkoff Paid Lobby Group Millions for Defunct Slogan

* Starting in 2011, the National Pork Board continued to pay the National Pork Producers Council $3 million per year for the “Pork. The Other White Meat” slogan for years after it was defunct in a licensing scheme. Independent pig farmers sued on the basis that their checkoff dollars shouldn’t go to NPPC, which actively works against their interests.

Dairy Checkoff Failed to Submit Congressionally Mandated Audits for Five Years

* The dairy checkoff, being the largest pool of money, is legally required by Congress to submit annual financial reports — but failed to do so from 2012-2016.

During debate on the 2018 Farm Bill, Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT) and Sen. Cory Booker (D-NJ) offered an amendment to reform the checkoff system. Called The Opportunities for Fairness in Farming (OFF) Act, it would:

  • Prohibit checkoff programs from contracting with any organization that lobbies on agricultural policy (with an exception for institutions of higher education, such as our land grant institutions).
  • Require transparency through the publication of checkoff program budgets and expenditures.
  • Require periodic audits of compliance with the act by the USDA Inspector General.

However Sen. Fischer voted against the Lee-Booker OFF Act amendment, helping to defeat it.