Agricultural News
Ag Commentator Calls HSUS Lawsuit an Effort to Destroy the US Beef Checkoff and Cause Harm to Animal Agriculture
Sun, 18 Sep 2016 05:46:06 CDT
Steve Dittmer was a well respected member of the agricultural trade media, specializing in the coverage of the Beef Industry before forming what he calls the AFF- the Agribusiness Freedom Foundation. According to Dittmer, the Foundation has been established to "promote free market principles throughout the agricultural food chain. The AFF believes it is possible to value the traditions and heritage of the past while embracing the future and the changes it brings. The AFF is a communications and educational initiative striving to preserve the freedom of the agricultural food chain to operate and innovate in order to continue the success of American agriculture."
Dittmer regularly blogs- and his latest writings are about the Humane Society of the US acitvely participating in legal action against the Beef Checkoff, seeking an end to the checkoff through the courts. Here is his commentary in full:
"We recently had to explain to Canadian cattlemen why in the world there were people supposedly part of the American beef industry trying to destroy their own beef checkoff. It's one of those times where "only in America" carries a very distressing undertone.
"We have a very effective checkoff, even though we pay way less per animal than most countries with major beef industries, from Canada down to Australia. Cattlemen designed our checkoff, to meet the expressed desires of cattlemen themselves. Cattlemen pay the checkoff and reimburse the USDA for making sure the Cattlemen's Beef Board (CBB) follows the myriad rules involved. Cattlemen and cattlewomen decide how cattlemen's funds are spent. You'd think everyone would be happy with such an arrangement.
"You'd also be wrong. As we tell audiences of cattlemen, unlike the old days when the cattle industry couldn't get any attention standing on its head, now there are groups lined up around the block opposing our very right to exist. We haven't exactly gotten used to groups like PETA and the Environmental Defense Fund attacking us, but at least their motivation is out there where we can see it and some logic is involved.
"What is still hard to fathom is groups purporting to be livestock groups fighting the beef industry, particularly when they are attacking the only self-help research, education and promotion effort we have. Two groups are spearheading different efforts right now. R-CALF is suing USDA for allowing money that has been collected by a qualified state beef council under the rules of the checkoff to be sent back to that state beef council to carry out promotion plans. That's a story for another time.
"Another saga that has been dragging on for several years has entered a new phase.
"The overwhelming majority of cattlemen still find it incredible that any of their groups had joined hands with an avowed adversary of raising animals for food purposes. They've watched them together attack the industry that over the years provided the beginnings, training and markets for the farm group. But that's what the Organization for Competitive Markets (OCM) did when they threw in with the Humane Society of the U.S. (HSUS). At first, HSUS just did some legal research for OCM, staying somewhat in the background, while advising OCM that their legal research concluded that there were legal avenues worth pursuing for attacking the checkoff.
"OCM then persuaded a Kansas City legal firm to do the legal work pro bono. Once a number of mainstream agricultural people found out that the firm was going to help the renegade group, advised by HSUS, to try to destroy the beef checkoff, that firm suddenly withdrew.
"HSUS decided then that they would step up and take an active role in the attack. The last couple years, HSUS officials and attorneys appear on panels at OCM meetings, briefing the members on developments.
"So OCM partners with a group pushing Meatless Mondays. HSUS' website directs people to vegetarian and vegan cookbooks and features the "Guide to Meat-Free Meals." HSUS has led efforts in several states to mandate animal husbandry practices via state constitution rather than animal science or farmer or rancher decisions. HSUS uses its relationship with OCM to gain credibility with the public that knows little or nothing about production agriculture, claiming farmers and ranchers side with the HSUS point of view. HSUS justifies its association with OCM, claiming that smaller, independent family farmers treat their animals better than "industrial agriculture." OCM gets, at the very least, substantial legal help in advancing one of its primary reasons for existence -- to damage NCBA in any way it can. For HSUS, attacking all the commodity checkoffs damages agriculture and that serves its purposes of making life miserable for mainstream, modern animal agriculture. For OCM, the checkoff attacks are a means to an end. Their primary motivation is real hatred for NCBA and the free market agriculture it supports.
"In April, 2013, OCM filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) with the Office of Inspector General (OIG) at USDA. OCM was seeking all the underlying information from an extensive audit the OIG conducted of CBB operations in 2010. HSUS and OCM didn't appear to reference numbers of pages at their annual meeting but made its disappointment clear. In OCM's complaint, it claimed to have received "less than 500 pages" but OIG did not confirm that number.
"At the 2015 OCM annual meeting, the members repeatedly pressed the HSUS attorney handling the checkoff case, Matthew Penzer, hoping he would say they had found something they could use against the checkoff or NCBA. The attorney would not be pressured into committing himself at that time.
"We don't know whether after the 500 pages they still didn't have anything and that's the reason they wanted more pages or if it is simply because they believed there were more pages to be had.
"At any rate, dissatisfied with the volume and pace, OCM, with HSUS's legal help, filed a lawsuit against USDA's OIG in November, 2014, asking for an injunction to force OIG to process more documents "immediately."
"In the OIG's answer to the suit, the OIG held that they had tried to negotiate with OCM to "narrow the scope" of OCM's request and tried to "establish a different time frame" with OCM but OCM had refused. The OIG, therefore, claimed that "exceptional circumstances exist" and it was "exercising due diligence" in processing documents as it could.
"On August 23, 2016, the U.S. District Court in D.C. held a hearing on the complaint. The court ordered plaintiffs (OCM) and defendants (OIG) to work out a "Proposed Order" within two days. But when the Proposed Order was filed with the court, attorneys for USDA's AMS -- the department responsible for checkoff oversight -- and OIG said neither agency could agree with the Proposed Order.
"So attorneys for AMS and OIG conferred and worked out a Defendant's Proposed Order, outlining how they could process 23,000 more pages of information and when. A status hearing will be held on Oct. 13, 2016. The district court judge so ordered.
"On August 31, 2016, the official in charge of FOIA requests for AMS, filed a four-page report tracing the activity in this case. Miscommunication between AMS and OIG teams accounted for some of the delays and complications in the case. But now, AMS had sorted things out enough to commit to determine a schedule for 9,000 of 14,000 pages within 30 days. Those were records it has had since April, 2015 but ignored, thinking they were duplicates or not relevant. Of the remaining 5,000 pages, AMS has to sort out which ones involve outside companies which need to be consulted regarding proprietary information, personal and financial information to be redacted. Of those not so involved, they would like to process the remainder of the 5,000 pages within 30 days after they finish the first batch.
AMS received another new batch of 9,358 pages on Aug. 25, 2016 and is trying to estimate when they can finish processing those documents.
"All of these numbers -- and this is a summary, not the agonizing detail -- are necessary to understand why NCBA, as primary contractor to CBB, is very concerned that after over three years of delays, fits and starts, AMS is talking about processing thousands and thousands of pages in a matter of a few weeks here and thousands more in a few weeks there. How can the agency properly check for proprietary information and accomplish the necessary redactions at that speed? Over 23,000 pages is a lot of information to check.
"That is why, to attempt to protect the interests of the cattlemen and their organizations involved, NCBA on Sept. 13, 2016 petitioned the court for intervenor status, in order to have some input on how this huge data review is to be handled. The legal maneuvers must be handled and paid for by NCBA's dues division because of legal restrictions on the CBB. As always, it is up to the industry's cattle industry association to defend the checkoff.
"But the many hours of reviewing thousands of pages of documents to request exemptions or redactions for proprietary business information or other factors will be conducted by AMS. That means all those costs will need to be reimbursed out of checkoff funds.
"At a time when the cattle market desperately needs boosts to demand, OCM and HSUS are perfectly willing to take checkoff money away from beef promotion efforts.
"Of course, that plays perfectly into HSUS' hands, as their goal is to cost the beef industry as much money as possible, waste our resources and disrupt markets whenever possible. And, as they have demonstrated over and over, OCM's members are perfectly willing to injure the entire industry -- including themselves -- if there is some way to damage a beef industry in which the players are too big, too unresponsive to their wishes and allows NCBA free rein to defend free market agriculture.
"OCM claims in a statement that NCBA petitioning for a "late claim" for intervenor status "clearly demonstrates...they will do anything to keep cattlemen in the dark," according to Mike Weaver, OCM president. OCM board member Fred Stokes terms the move "desperate." Yet OCM ignores the fact that if NCBA was ever worried about what would come out in FOIA requests, they could have not waited but gotten involved in the case years ago. However, the NCBA knows what's in the documentation so they've not been concerned about any significant disclosures. They are only acting now to try to protect the checkoff funds necessary for boosting demand at a critical time. OCM is simply preying upon a few naysayers' belief that groups they don't like must be doing something wrong.
"Two OIG audits have found no problems with breaches of the firewall between the checkoff and NCBA, yet OCM and HSUS continue to press on, to the detriment of the beef industry. Bottom line: the mindset of OCM's members will not allow them to believe NCBA could possibly be operating on the up and up. Only OCM members and the organizations they collaborate with can be good guys.
"So convinced of that belief, OCM's Weaver is actually accusing NCBA of "more than likely using checkoff funds to file this motion..." OCM actually refers to NCBA having "iron-fisted control of the checkoff awarding process," when by law, under the structure voted on by America's cattlemen, the members of the Beef Promotion Operating Committee that authorize spending are half from the CBB and half from the Federation of State Beef Councils. NCBA has no seats. OCM accuses OIG of not addressing the "fundamental conflict of interest" of NCBA's "iron-fisted control." It wasn't addressed because it does not exist.
"OCM continues, with HSUS assistance, to attempt to "reform" the checkoff structure put in place by cattlemen themselves by vote, a structure that has served the industry well. But OCM, with HSUS's encouragement, believes it knows better than all those cattlemen and cattlewomen past and present, who designed, voted and operated that structure for over 30 years.
"NCBA is normally reluctant to use the court system, compared to more radical groups like R-CALF and OCM. It's expensive and it often puts the fate of cattlemen in the hands of courts with limited knowledge and no background in our industry. But sometimes it becomes necessary."
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