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Promoting Agriculture: Farmers, the State, and Checkoff Marketing, 1935–2005

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  08 November 2016

Sarah Milov
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Abstract

This article provides a historical overview of the development of U.S. government-mandated commodity promotion. This form of promotion, known colloquially as the “checkoff,” is responsible for such memorable slogans as “Beef: It's What's for Dinner,” as well as research intended to boost consumption of agricultural products. The article argues that checkoffs represent an associational form of governance in which private organizations achieve public aims. Though they have been frequently challenged in courts and have garnered scrutiny from public health activists, checkoffs have been a durable form of agricultural regulation because they hide the heavy hand of government with the rhetoric of markets and self-help.

Type
Research Article
Information
Business History Review , Volume 90 , Special Issue 3: A Special Issue on Food and Agriculture , Autumn 2016 , pp. 505 - 536
Copyright
Copyright © The President and Fellows of Harvard College 2016 

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References

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54 Ibid.

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70 Few studies investigate the overall outcomes of checkoff-funded research. One analysis of research funded by the dairy checkoff “did not find consistent evidence that checkoff funded projects were more likely to support an obesity prevention benefit from dairy consumption.” But, as the authors note, “industry sources are more likely to fund research on certain questions, which hold promise for results that are more favorable to the industry.” By merely asking certain types of questions, checkoffs can still shape the kind of scientific knowledge produced. Parke Wilde, Emily Morgan, Jesse Roberts, Andrea Schpok, and Tawny Wilson, “Relationship between Funding Sources and Outcomes of Obesity-Related Research,” Physiology and Behavior 107, no. 1 (2012): 175.

71 Beef Board, 1990 Annual Report, 17.

72 Ibid.

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95 Mark Champoux, “Uncovering Coherence in Compelled Subsidy of Speech Doctrine: Johanns v. Livestock Marketing Association” Harvard Journal of Law and Public Policy 29, no. 3 (2005) 1107–17; The New York Times, hardly a routine observer of farm news, published two opinion pieces denouncing the pork checkoff in the wake of the Michigan Pork Producers case: “The Other Political Pork,” 10 Nov. 2002 and “Unconstitutional Farm Checkoffs,” 1 Nov. 2003.

96 Parsons, “Cattle on a Thousand Hills,” 432–33.

97 Ibid.

98 Beef Board, 2003 Annual Report, 12.

99 Beef Board, 2002 Annual Report, 3.

100 Ibid., 1.

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