Call lawmakers on Opportunities for Fairness in Farming

The OFF Act is getting real traction and has a number of co-sponsors in both the House, in HR 1249, and the Senate, in S 557. What these bills aim to do is reorganize 22 commodity checkoff programs such that USDA has actual authority to oversee how the money is used. The aim is to ensure that the programs are accountable to the farmers and ranchers who pay the checkoff taxes.

It appears that all of the checkoff programs are plagued by allegations that they are not effective or transparent. The big ones such as eggs, beef, wheat, dairy, pork and soybeans, seem to be particularly poorly implemen...