CHICAGO -- A referendum victory by the nation's independent hog producers to end their mandatory contributions to a government-supervised advertising campaign that promotes pork as the "other white meat" could have major implications for the marketing of other commodities, including beef, milk, grains and cotton, producers and farm experts said last week.
After announcing that the controversial "pork checkoff" was defeated 15,951 to 14,396 in nationwide balloting, Agriculture Secretary Dan Glickman said Thursday that he will terminate the mandatory assessments, which cost producers $54 million annually to fund research and advertising aimed at getting people to buy more pork products.
The vote result was a major boost for independent hog farmers in their growing dispute with pork packing houses and large corporate farms, which checkoff opponents say have benefited the most from the fees -- 45 cents per $100 on each hog sold -- along with the National Pork Producers Council. The money goes to the quasi-governmental National Pork Board, which contracts promotional services through the pork council.
"For years, the NPPC has been using our money to represent the interests of corporate factory farms and meatpackers," said Rhonda Perry, a Missouri farmer and spokeswoman for the Campaign for Family Farms, which helped lead the campaign against the checkoff. "We're sick and tired of losing money hand over fist due to consolidation of the pork industry and the ill-conceived policies of the NPPC."
Perry said the referendum results "open the door for independent producers to directly challenge the big corporations and the meatpackers they represent. It creates a situation where all commodity groups have to be much more accountable to their producers, or the producers will simply say, 'That's it.' "
Overall, commodities producers and importers pay more than $660 million a year in mandatory fees to programs regulated by independent boards and councils that promote consumer interest with slogans such as "Pork, the other white meat," "Got Milk?" and "Cotton, the fabric of our lives."
In the past, some commodities producers have contended the programs have engaged in inappropriate spending of the assessments and poor accounting practices. In 1998, The Washington Post detailed expenditures in Cotton Inc.'s $60 million program for such things as a $450,000 party at New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art and entertainment expenses that included golfing fees and drink tabs at topless bars. Such expenditures fueled resentment against checkoff programs generally and set the stage for action by the Department of Agriculture.
In announcing the end of the 12-year-old pork checkoff, Glickman said, "A program that imposes mandatory assessments on pork producers and importers must have demonstrable support of its participants in order to achieve the objectives of the law. The pork checkoff does not have that support."
Glickman ordered the referendum last year even though the USDA did not validate a sufficient number of signatures on petitions submitted by farmers who oppose the fee.
Craig Jarolimek, the pork council's president, said his group will file for a court injunction to overturn the referendum.
"Instead of a sincere attempt to capture the will of the majority of legitimate pork producers about their checkoff, USDA let political motivation decide the fate of one of the most successful commodity programs in American agriculture," Jarolimek said.
Pork council officials charged that the referendum was marred by the distribution of incorrect voting materials, failure to post lists of producers who requested absentee ballots and even allowing some producers to cast both absentee and in-person ballots.
"Again and again, producers are citing to us examples of flaws in the referendum voting process," said Karl Johnson, a pork council referendum task force co-chairman.
Farm experts said that if the pork referendum has a ripple effect on other commodities, the beef industry would most likely feel it first. The USDA has been petitioned by a beef auction marketing group and independent beef producers to hold a referendum on the $90 million-a-year beef promotion checkoff, which has been in effect since 1988.
George Hall, president of the National Cattlemen's Beef Association, said he sympathizes with pork producers who, he said, "lost a major weapon in their fight to maintain consumer demand for pork." But he said his group will continue to support the $1-a-head mandatory assessment on beef cattle.
Walt Barnhart, the beef association's trade media director, said numerous surveys by his group have shown that beef producers generally favor the checkoff program, although he conceded that "people who are against this kind of self-help marketing program will take the pork referendum as a victory."
However, Perry suggested that not only the beef industry but also the milk, cotton, corn and soybean industries could be in for a surprise as the pork referendum emboldens opponents of mandatory assessments for promotional activities.
"This was not only a referendum by hog farmers on the pork checkoff, but it was a referendum on agriculture as a whole. The hog farmers showed everyone they can take a position and make it stick," Perry said.
Dale Leslein, a hog farmer in Dubuque, Iowa, and an activist in the pork checkoff battle, said, "Family farmers are fighting back against the commodity groups that have sold them out. . . . We took down the NPPC, and we're going after their corporate allies next."
Mike Yost, chairman of the St. Louis-based American Soybean Association, said there has been no groundswell to roll back the $65 million annual soybean checkoff.
"In the pork industry, there's such a struggle between the large and small producers, but we don't see that happening nearly as much in row crops like soybeans," Yost said. He said a 1999 poll of the nation's 600,000 soybean farmers showed only 3 percent wanted a referendum to end the checkoff, far fewer than the 10 percent needed to force a vote.
There are also promotion programs for milk, dairy products, almonds, peaches, plums, nectarines, watermelon, honey, popcorn, potatoes, peanuts, mushrooms and eggs, among other commodities.
Last year, the U.S. Supreme Court refused to hear an appeal by dairy farmers who had been battling in federal courts since 1996 to end their mandatory assessments for milk promotions. Mushroom and almond growers also lost anti-checkoff cases in the federal courts that year.
Agriculture Secretary Dan Glickman, before a Senate committee in 1999, said the pork program would not work without the support of its participants.
