Search Results for: ncba

9 Actions We Can Take Now to Strengthen Our Agriculture and Food System

OCM Staff

The Covid-19 Pandemic has had many effects on the economy of the United States, and particularly hard-hit has been the agriculture and food sector.  Not since the Depression have we seen such a disparity between retail and farmgate prices, empty grocery shelves while people clamor for food, and farmers going out of business. Like something straight out of John Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath, farmers are euthanizing livestock, dumping milk, and allowing produce to rot in the fields, Read More …

30% of Nothing is Still Nothing

OCM Staff

Currently there is a movement in the cattle industry calling for a mandatory beef cattle cash market volume of 30%. Corbitt Wall is touting it as the biggest thing to hit the cattle industry since Y-Tex eartags, while patting himself on the back like he just invented a new card game. Meanwhile, NCBA has been spending our checkoff dollars developing an online cookbook.  Beef producers need Market Reform, not Martha Stewart. Perhaps NCBA could spend less of its Read More …

Checkoff Program Reform Legislation Filed in U.S. House of Representatives

OCM Staff

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Today, Congresswoman Titus (NV-01) introduced the Opportunities for Fairness in Farming (OFF) Act in the U.S. House of Representatives. This legislation is the companion bill to S.935, filed in 2019 by U.S. Senators Mike Lee (R-UT), Cory Booker (D-NJ), Rand Paul (R-KY), and Elizabeth Warren (D-MA). The OFF Act would put an end to the most egregious abuses committed by the boards and contractors of the federally mandated commodity checkoff programs. Checkoff programs have been instrumental in the Read More …

2019 in Review: Hitting ‘Em Where It Hurts

OCM Staff

What a year! 2019 wraps up as one of OCM’s most successful yet. We exposed and challenged JBS’ corrupt monopoly power, the injustice in the market with the repeal of mandatory Country of Origin Labeling, how farmers’ checkoff dollars are being pocketed by industrialized agriculture lobbying groups, and how global corporations and foreign countries are buying up America’s farmland, disadvantaging U.S. farmers and ranchers. With your help we have taken on the food and agriculture monopolies, and they Read More …

Groups Call out Kansas Livestock Association over Misuse of Funds

OCM Staff

The Kansas Livestock Association (KLA) has been collecting and expending $10 million dollars per year in violation of state and federal law, according to the Organization for Competitive Markets (OCM) and the Kansas Cattlemen’s Association (KCA). A briefing paper released by the two groups today outlines how KLA has obtained funding through an improperly close affiliation with the Kansas Beef Council, which is charged with collecting $1 a head from every cattle transaction as part of the federally Read More …

Drovers | Checkoff Reform Legislation Reintroduced by Presidential Candidates

OCM Staff

Drovers Wyatt Bechtel A bill seeking to limit the use of agricultural checkoff funds has been reintroduced in the Senate and it has the backing of several current or former presidential candidates on both sides of the aisle. The Opportunities for Fairness in Farming (OFF) Act of 2019 was reintroduced on March 28, by U.S. Senators Mike Lee (R-UT) and Cory Booker (D-NJ) after the same legislation failed to make its way in to the farm bill during the 2018 mark up. Read More …

Livestock Market Digest | Lee Pitts: Or So We Were Told

OCM Staff

First printed in the Livestock Market Digest By Lee Pitts Ever since the beef checkoff went into effect on July 18, 1986, we could count on regular “independent survey results” informing us that 70% or more of all cattlemen approved of the beef checkoff. Typical of such glowing report cards was the one that told us that for every beef checkoff dollar collected, cattlemen were receiving back $11.20 in revenue. You’d have to be a complete, knuckle-dragging ignoramus Read More …

Brownfield Ag News | OCM: Beef Checkoff Suit Against USDA at Critical Phase

OCM Staff

Brownfield Ag News By Tom Steever Audio is available at above link. The executive director of the Organization for Competitive Markets (OCM) says that group’s Beef Checkoff suit against the USDA is at an important phase. Joe Maxwell tells Brownfield OCM has worked five years for the opportunity to file briefs and make its argument in federal court. “Farmers and ranchers should have the right to know how their taxes are being expended,” Maxwell told Brownfield Ag News Read More …