68 Farm Groups Support Checkoff Reform Bill Reintroduction
The bipartisan Opportunities for Fairness in Farming (OFF) Act would support America’s farmers and ranchers by bringing transparency and accountability to USDA’s commodity checkoff programs.
Farmers and ranchers are demanding a fair farm bill.
Farmers and ranchers are gathering to protest government policies that favor the largest food industry giants as the national “Enough Is Enough Tour” surges across the U.S. this spring.
With Congress preparing to debate the farm bill during prime planting and calving season, restricting farmers’ and ranchers’ ability to bring their voices to Washington D.C., farm groups will gather at events in six states to call on Congress to deliver a bill that levels the playing field.
The Enough Is Enough Tour is a unified platform for farmers and ranchers to voice the disastrous impacts of the current system on their lives and livelihoods, and to demand reforms that bring prosperity and fair competition to agriculture. The tour is endorsed by 16 farm organizations and sponsored and organized by Farm Action and Farm Action Fund.
A major focus of the tour is to highlight corruption in government checkoff programs, which collect one billion dollars from producers annually. Checkoff programs have funded famous promotional campaigns like “Beef. It’s What’s for Dinner” and “Pork. The Other White Meat.”
Started 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. Learn more about checkoff program corruption.
Tour events will take place across the country, hosted by grassroots and national organizations representing the interests of our nation’s food producers:
Everyone can support the tour’s mission by purchasing a USA-made Enough Is Enough t-shirt! Proceeds will go toward our efforts to keep farmers feeding America.
Scroll down to see the tour in action!
The bipartisan Opportunities for Fairness in Farming (OFF) Act would support America’s farmers and ranchers by bringing transparency and accountability to USDA’s commodity checkoff programs.
The incident clearly illustrates why checkoff money shouldn’t go to any groups that lobby on agriculture policy, said Farm Action Fund’s Joe Maxwell.
Hundreds of thousands of farmers support the OFF Act, which would restore transparency and accountability to checkoff programs.