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Indiana 5th District Republican Congresswoman Victoria Spartz ignited a firestorm this past week with her amendment to the Agriculture, Rural Development, Food and Drug Administration, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act of 2024 — the legislation that funds the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA). The amendment states that none of the funds made available by the bill may be used to carry out commodity checkoff programs. What makes this so puzzling to most in agriculture is that NO federal funds are used in any of the commodity checkoff programs. All funds used are contributed by the producers of the commodity in question.
In an interview with Hoosier Ag Today, Spartz was unaware of this fact and several others. “I just sold over fifty thousand bushels of wheat and paid the fees,” she emphatically stated. The problem is, there is no wheat checkoff and no organization in Indiana to collect such funds. For someone who worked as a bank teller, CPA, and finance executive before getting into politics, she seems ignorant of some basic financial facts. In the HAT interview, she went on to explain why she is opposed to the way checkoff programs are run. “There is a problem with checkoff. They’re not transparent. They are not telling what’s happening with the board, who’s serving on the board, what they’re doing, how they spend money,” she said. “This is a fee [that] farmers are forced to pay. It’s not a voluntary fee. Congress forces every farmer to pay this tax, so Congress needs to know what they’re doing. And farmers need to know.”
In addition, she is calling for USDA to be involved and to oversee the funding of the many different checkoff programs. This despite the fact that Spartz claims in her official biography that “limited government is always better, and financial and healthcare decisions should be made by individuals in the free market, not bureaucrats and special interests.”
In addition to the lack of transparency, Spartz claims that the funds collected from checkoffs are controlled by “high paid executives” and corporate monopolies. Having worked with many of these checkoff organizations, their leadership and staff, for the past 45 years, I can personally attest this is not the case. Most of the people administering these programs come from farm backgrounds and have a personal passion for agriculture. In addition, farmers who produce the commodity in question volunteer their time to oversee the administration and implementation of these programs. Any farmer who grows the commodity in question has the right and ability to join a board of directors that oversee the programs. These elitist claims are populist poppycock that have no basis in reality.
So, what has sparked the Congresswomen’s sudden interest in reforming the checkoff programs that have been operating for decades. Perhaps she is taking a page from the playbook of Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) who has built an international reputation for making wildly false and inflammatory statements. Take, for example, Spartz’s latest claim that “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.” Yes, she really said that in a release from her office. Conspiracy theory podcasts and late night radio shows will really love that. Spartz, who is not seeking re-election in 2024, has not been visibly involved in agriculture legislation for the past 4 years and has only occasionally spoken on agricultural issues important to Indiana farmers.
Spartz’ amendment is just the latest legislative attack in Washington on checkoff programs, according to Ethan Lane, Vice President of Government Affairs with NCBA. “The OFF Act that’s being pushed by the HSUS Humane Society of the US, ASPCA, and Senator Cory Booker from New Jersey and Mike Lee, Nancy Mace,” he said. “We don’t want to have any sort of wrinkle in that wall of opposition to these outside forces trying to prevent the producers from promoting their own products and conducting research in the space that they operate in.”
The Spartz amendment attempts to solve a problem that does not exist, something Congress is very good at doing. This unnecessary amendment is just a vehicle to generate misinformation and falsehoods about producer-funded programs that are well-run, accountable, and beneficial to U.S. agriculture.
That’s how I see it.
Gary Truitt
The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and not of Hoosier Ag Today, its employees, advertisers, or affiliated radio stations.