CULTURE

Checkoff’s Gun

Big Brother Beef’s US Checkoff Program

Liz Koonce

Published in

Ellemeno

7 min readMay 23, 2023

The scene is tense. Dozens of workers stand in front of a vast wall of computers displaying live feeds of trending conversations on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook. Ticker-tape style headlines from major news outlets flood other screens, flashing by in real-time as workers scan for key words and phrases that indicate a crisis is brewing. They are ready at a moment’s notice, seven days a week, twenty-four hours a day. Are we inside an anti-terrorist outpost? A hidden secret service branch? On the set of a 24 reboot? No.

We are inside the Beef Digital Command Center.

Before I tell you more about this mysterious command center, I have to explain what a checkoff program is. A checkoff program “promotes and provides” research and information for an agricultural commodity, collecting funds to do so from the producers of that same commodity. “Promotes and Provides” covers a whole laundry list of goals, including expanding the market for that commodity, increasing the demand for it, and developing new uses or markets for it. The beef checkoff program was established as a part of the 1985 Farm Bill and paying dues or “checkoff dollars” to the program is mandatory for all beef producers in the country, no matter their size. Though many state and lower federal courts have ruled mandatory checkoffs unconstitutional, the Supreme Court ruled in the mandatory beef checkoff’s favor in 2005. This decision was challenged in 2020 and 2021, but in July of 2021 was again enforced.

Since there is little way to expand or develop the market for beef, the beef checkoff’s main goal is to ensure that beef stays on top, by any means necessary. Much like Big Oil or Big Tobacco, Big Beef lobbies to defeat regulations that would benefit the climate, or even those that would benefit small producers- those same small producers who still have to pay dues to the checkoff program. And those dues mainly go to fund the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association (NCBA), the checkoff’s pet contractor and lobbying arm. About 73% of the NCBA’s lobbying budget comes directly from beef checkoff funds, though less than 4% of cattle producers in the country are members of the NCBA. The NCBA president’s nearly $500,000 salary also comes mostly from the checkoff fund. So, what does the NCBA do with all that checkoff money, exactly? Well, they create the Beef Digital Command Center, for starters.

An article in Western Farmer-Stockman sponsored by the Cattlemen’s Beef Board describes the “issues management” and media relations programs which lie within the Beef Digital Command Center as working to “safeguard you and the beef community from misinformation, misperceptions, crises, and from misinformed sources” through “appropriate action, whether that is to correct misinformation or to push out positive information.” The Beef Digital Command Center alerts the NCBA when certain topics (like overgrazing, methane output, or alternative meats) hit certain thresholds for engagement, after which they spring into action. If this article gets enough views, they will certainly know about it, and may even send some undercover staff to the comments section to rebut my statements.

The Beef Digital Command Center is the reactive arm of the NCBA, but they certainly have proactive arms as well. A National Cattlemen’s Beef Association leaflet to its constituents titled “There is no alternative to BEEF” states “we are helping lawmakers understand how beef is produced in the US and the positive benefits it contributes to our diets and to our environment so they do not pass ill-informed legislation that could put beef at a disadvantage.” What is the best way to help lawmakers understand? Pay them. In 2014 the meat industry spent approx. 10.8 million in political campaign contributions and 6.9 million on lobbying. Big Beef also backs political campaigns. Members of Congress that the meat industry has founded back pro-ag bills and vote against climate change legislation. But while lobbying and political contributions are certainly powerful, the main success of the beef checkoff lies in advertising and changing public opinions and perceptions.

A Google search campaign funded by the beef checkoff board delivers “Beef. It’s what’s for dinner” ads to anyone who googles “meat substitutes”, “beyond beef”, “impossible meat”, and other meat alternative key words and phrases. The meat industry spent over 10 million in 2022 paying influencers to push pro-meat messages. The checkoff created a Google AI virtual assistant named Chuck who answered questions about the beef industry with pre-written NCBA “facts and figures” from NCBA-funded research, provided beef recipes when asked what to cook, and maligned meat substitutes when asked about them. They published 85 letters to the editor in local newspapers on earth day and for UN Climate Week proclaiming that beef is sustainable. The beef checkoff even sponsored Lance Pekus, an American Ninja Warrior contestant on NBC to promote beef as the source of his strength. In July of 2021 the checkoff paid for a full-page ad praising the sustainability of the cattle industry in the Wall Street Journal. Months after Beyond Meat IPOed with the biggest stock market debut in 20 years, they aired a 5-million-dollar Super Bowl Ad to claim that plant-based fake meat wasn’t as healthy as beef.

They can make these claims because they have the “science” to back them up. The beef industry provides grants to fund food scientists to produce biased research that supports cattle farms and releases pro-beef and dairy propaganda. Independent research has shown that “when food companies funded research, their research questions were phrased in such a way that the results could be used for marketing purposes.” Frank Mitloehner is one of the researchers pumping out this Big Beef-funded research. Mitloehner iss the founder of the CLEAR Center at the University of California Davis. CLEAR stands for “Clarity and Leadership for Environmental Awareness and Research”. Freedom of Information Act documents obtained by Unearthed and the New York Times from UC Davis show that nearly all the funding for the CLEAR Center comes from industrial cattle interests. The CLEAR Center claims to “advance sustainability in animal agriculture” but Mitloehner defends the beef industry and pushes back against climate-related legislation openly, even going so far as to testify in congress on the beef industry’s behalf. The funding that Mitloehner and his CLEAR center receive comes from the American Feed Industry Association ($2.9 million), The California Cattle Council (approximately $200,000), and other beef industry mainstays. Mitloehner argues that global emissions tallies shouldn’t apply to American consumers since beef raised in the US is more climate-efficient than beef from Brazil, ignoring the fact that the US also imports beef from Brazil and exports huge quantities of American beef to Asia and South America. If you like Mitolehner’s style, you can get a “Masters of Beef Advocacy” funded by NCBA checkoff funds. This provides you with pseudo-scientific narratives, videos, sound bites, infographics, and talking points about the false sustainability of the beef industry. MBA documents tout that “these advocates also help to respond when there is misinformation in the public about beef production and other beef-related issues”.

As an “MBA”, you would likely be touting the NCBA’s 2021 “Beefing Up Sustainability Campaign”. The goal of “Beefing Up Sustainability” campaign was to “proactively position beef as a sustainable food.” No matter how many food and nutrition influencers are paid to use #sustainablebeef on social media, the fact remains that for every kilogram of beef consumed, on average 99.5 kilograms of greenhouse gases are released into the atmosphere. Not to mention water usage and desertification. Per calorie, beef requires more land and produces more greenhouse gases than almost any other food.

NCBA Political Action Committee’s (PAC) policy work for 2023 includes fighting to delist species from the Endangered Species Act and to ensure that the Fish & Wildlife Service considers the “economic harm imposed on producers by unnecessary listings” and pushing for cattle ranchers to be able to enact range improvements on the range even if endangered species are present. It also includes lobbying in preparation for the winter 2023 update to the Government Dietary Guidelines. According to its PAC website, “NCBA is closely monitoring the Dietary Guidelines process to ensure that anti-animal agriculture activists do not try and skew the process in their favor. Some activist groups have proposed including “sustainability” considerations in the new guidelines- code for saying that beef consumption should be heavily reduced or eliminated.”

The cattle industry and the widespread influence of the US beef checkoff should not be underestimated. It is time for smaller ranchers to rise up. More than 80% of the entire US Beef market is controlled by four massive meatpacking companies, and as the price of beef has steadily risen, individual farmer’s shares of the price of beef sales have dropped by more than a quarter. Yet small independent ranchers are still forced to pay into the beef checkoff fund which spews out the very doublethink propaganda that is changing the minds of lawmakers and lining the pockets of corporations. It is time for a meat revolution. But keep a wary eye out. In the Beef Digital Command Center, Big Brother Beef is watching.