Submitted
On Thursday, Congresswoman Victoria Spartz (R-Ind.-05), issued the following statement in response to personal attacks from checkoff-financed industry boards working to defeat her amendment to the Agriculture Appropriation Act – part of what she says is an improved checkoff transparency and accountability efforts in the Farm Bill reauthorization.
Spartz
“It is deeply concerning that these farmer-financed unaccountable boards resort to sexist personal attacks to prevent transparency into their slush funds,” Rep. Spartz said. “Despite their supposed non-lobbying status, they have been engaging in a smear campaign and backdoor lobbying against me. As a farmer myself, I understand the importance of promoting our commodities at home and abroad as well as more opportunities for smaller farmers. However, I see more and more corporate cronyism in agriculture with highly paid executives promoting just a few monopolies mostly owned by Brazil and China in some ag sectors, which are using child labor provided by Mexican cartels. We must demand transparency for roughly $1 billion in mandatory fees taken annually from farmers by the federal government and given to executives like USDA Secretary Vilsack who was paid about $1 million per year between his Obama and Biden jobs by one of these boards. Glad to see that my colleagues listened and decided not to move this ag appropriation bill this week before Farm Bill reauthorization in violation of regular order.”
The checkoff is a mandatory fee that many U.S. farmers pay every time they sell any of 22 major commodities for research and promotion purposes. Checkoff programs were originally voluntary where farmers could check off a box to pay into the shared fund, but eventually Congress made these fees mandatory. These programs collect roughly $1 billion annually and have been involved in a number of abuse and corruption scandals over the years.
Read Rep. Spartz’s amendment here and the full bill text here.