Progress for American Family Farmers in '23 & What's in Store for '24

It’s certainly been a tumultuous year in Washington, D.C., and I’m looking forward to the new year ahead. As many of you know, after I departed FreedomWorks back in May following the attacks against our efforts to achieve checkoff reform and pass the Opportunities for Fairness in Farming (OFF) Act, H.R. 1249/S. 557, we started Competitive Markets Action (CMA), a 501 (c)(4) non-profit that’s partnering with the Organization for Competitive Markets (OCM) to ensure success with the OFF Act and also defeat the terrible so-called Ending Agriculture Trade Suppression (EATS) Act, H.R. 4417/S. 2019. The measure is led by Sen. Roger Marshall, R-KS, and Rep. Ashely Hinson, R-IA – two Members of Congress who have been no friends to American family farmers. EATS would nullify over a thousand state laws that help and protect both family farmers and the animals they raise.

I often wonder if Members like these, and others, even have the slightest clue of the damage they’re doing to farmers and ranchers or if they just don’t care. Industrial agriculture interests like the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association (NCBA),Tyson, and Smithfield, has long-bamboozled many good Members of the House and Senate.

Marshall himself, has been an ally to me on some other animal issues and has helped some of my past work to stamp out cockfighting in the U.S. I’ve always thought he was a reasonable guy until he came out swinging with the EATS Act. Perhaps the Kansas Cattlemen’s Association’s founder, and OCM’s vice-president Mike Schultz, one of Marshall’s constituents, said it best back in June “the EATS Act is nothing but a Trojan Horse designed to put family farmers out of business and give multinational conglomerates like the Chinese-owned Smithfield an even greater advantage than they already have. It’s a crying shame to see my Senator Roger Marshall leading this assault on producers and states’ rights.”

But despite multinational conglomerates, NCBA, and the National Pork Producers Council (NPPC) pouring tons of resources into advancing EATS, they’ve failed to make much progress to date. Marshall even openly admitted on RFDTV that he’s losing when he said “We’re getting the heck beat out of us,” following OCM’s July Farm Bill Summit on Capitol Hill where we executed more than 90 in-person meetings in a matter of 3 days. Even House Agriculture Committee Chairman Glenn Thompson told NPR this month that the EATS Act is “dead as a piece of legislation.” But that only means “as written,” because House Agriculture Committee staff continue to press for some alternative to be included in the Farm Bill that would nullify state laws enacted by the will of the people, including California’s Prop 12 now in the implementation stage. Prop 12 simply requires that whole cuts of pork sold in the Golden State must come from pigs that are allowed to stand up and turn around instead of being kept in painful gestation crates.

It's quite strange that some Members of Congress are still beating the EATS drum with Clemens Food Group, the fourth largest pork producer in the U.S., as well Niman Ranch, Heritage Foods, and Butcher Box, all having come out against EATS in public fashion. At the end of the day, I have no doubt we’ll ultimately defeat this assault on states’ rights and family farmers, but its going to take all of us continuing to roll up our sleeves and work hard to do it. We’ve been fortunate to have received some great resources and grant funding to defeat EATS, and it’s rejuvenated many family farmers across the country.

On the checkoff front, we haven’t been so lucky. To date, our organizations have raised very little to help with our campaign to secure the enactment of the OFF Act in the Farm Bill, and we’ve struggled to keep the campaign afloat. I’m not really sure if people don’t understand the issue, don’t have the money, or just don’t care, but we’ve must secure some more resources to help with this issue if we are going to win. I am very thankful to Farm Action Fund and the Alabama Contract Poultry Growers Association for the support they’ve provided and if it weren’t for them we wouldn’t have been able to continue the campaign for checkoff reform. OFF is backed by the National Taxpayer’s Union, FreedomWorks, the Heritage Foundation, and more than 200,000 farmers and ranchers in the U.S.

The OFF Act would bring transparency and accountability to the U.S. Dept. of Agriculture’s swampy and scandal-ridden checkoff programs that tax farmers to the tune of almost $1 billion per year. It would also prohibit the funds from being used to lobby for policies that hurt farmers, and put them out of business like the NCBA’s lobbying for the repeal of Country-of-Origin Labeling (COOL) did, and it would prohibit the funds from being used to disparage one product over another in the marketplace. It’s astounding that such a corrupt system has been in place for so many decades, and if we’re going to win the war then we need your help.

OFF has the right leaders in place with Sens. Mike Lee, R-UT, Rand Paul, R-KY, Cory Booker, D-NJ, and Elizabeth Warren, D-MA, leading the Senate bill, and Reps. Nancy Mace, R-SC, and Dina Titus, D-NV, leading the House version, and we’ve picked up more cosponsors than we’ve ever had before – a raft of Republicans and Democrats alike. It’s a rare circumstance that we see these Members of Congress from such opposite ends of the spectrum come together, but they are working for family farmers, and working to help keep them in business.

We continue to keep an eye on efforts to bring back COOL, but the prospects look very slim, and we’re still backing the Processing Revival and Intrastate Meat Exemption (PRIME) Act, H.R. 2814, S. 907, led by Reps. Thomas Massie, R-KY, and Chellie Pingree, D-ME, in the House and Sens. Angus King, I-ME, and Rand Paul, R-KY, in the Upper Chamber. The legislation would cut federal red tape and help bring new smaller processing facilities across America. OCM Founder Fred Stokes has been a tireless champion of these efforts for longer than I’ve been alive, and this issue will be one of the main focuses at OCM’s annual convention in Biloxi, MS next year.

With the Farm Bill now officially being extended through September 30 of next year, we’ve got a long road ahead, and a lot of work to do. I’m confident we’ll get some wins next year, but again, we’re going to need your help. Today, the most important thing you can do is call 202-224-3121 and ask your Members of Congress to cosponsor and support both the OFF Act, S.557/H.R. 1249, and the PRIME Act, S. 907/H.R. 2814, and to strongly oppose the EATS Act, S. 2019/H.R. 4417 – you can and will make the difference.

Marty Irby is the president of both Competitive Markets Action and Capitol South, LLC, in Washington, D.C., and a director and board secretary at the Organization for Competitive Markets based in Lincoln, NE. He was named one of The Hill’s Top Lobbyists for 2019, 2020, 2021, and 2023 and can be found on Facebook, Twitter (X), and Instagram @MartyIrby.