Danny Vinik in Politico reports on pork "Other White Meat" sale

Danny Vinik in Politico's Agenda today:

Pork hasn't been "the other white meat" for years—after a 24-year run as the centerpiece of billboards and the butt of jokes, the slogan was retired in 2011 and replaced with "Pork: Be Inspired," a logo you might have seen on the apron of Ted Cruz as he grilled pork chops at the Iowa State fair last week.

But the National Pork Board, a government-sponsored entity funded by a tax on hog farmers, still writes a check for $3 million every year to license the unused slogan—a bewildering payout that only makes sense, critics say, when you realize the money goes straight to an industrial pork lobby that has long been closely tied to the board. Farmers who pay for the board are crying foul, saying the deal amounts to a scheme to let the board skirt anti-lobbying laws and promote an agenda directly against their interests.

My question, quoted in the article:

“Are the artichoke producers competing for the slogan "Pork: The Other White Meat"? No, I don't think so.”

I recognize that many pork producers are hesitant to criticize the National Pork Producers Council (NPPC), but I think that any who do look over the history of this slogan sale will be upset at how their mandatory payments are being spent.

For additional background, here is some past reporting in U.S. Food Policy.

Where is the dairy checkoff Report to Congress?

Each year, USDA's Agricultural Marketing Service (AMS) sends an official Report to Congress summarizing the activities of the dairy checkoff program. Through this program, milk and dairy producers must pay a mandatory assessment -- like a tax -- to semi-public federal checkoff boards that use the funds for advertising and promotion.

As this blog has reported in the past, the annual reports make lively reading, laying bare the program's ambitions for raising dairy consumption through healthy and unhealthy methods alike. For example, in Feb 2014, we noted that the report described the program's partnerships with Domino's and other restaurant chains to get Americans -- who already consume astonishing amounts of pizza -- to yet further increase their average pizza consumption. The pizza partnerships appear in tension with the Dietary Guidelines for Americans, which also is overseen by USDA (jointly with the Department of Health and Human Services).

Recently, the AMS website has been redesigned. The dairy checkoff annual reports that formerly were posted there can no longer be found, at least for now. USDA may be intending to repost these reports as the website redesign proceeds. [Update Aug 20: AMS writes by email today that a link is now available to the archived reports from the website's pages for the fluid milk checkoff program and the dairy checkoff program. Thanks!]

Moreover, even though the annual Report to Congress is required under dairy checkoff program rules, AMS has not released a report for any year of program activities since 2012. The most recent report I have was a 2013 report covering the 2012 activities. When they become available, I look forward to reading the reports covering 2013 and 2014 activities. 

Dairy farmers may wonder at the scarcity and untimeliness of transparent information about the hundreds of millions of dollars they are forced to pay into these advertising and promotion programs. 

Yet, perhaps it is better to be a dairy farmer than a pork or beef producer. The other leading checkoff programs have no independent USDA Report to Congress at all. The only annual reports for beef and pork come straight from the checkoff programs themselves. In my experience, the dairy checkoff Report to Congress from AMS has always been more frank than the internal annual reports from the other programs, so the lack of timely posting seems like a loss for sound U.S. food policy-making.

U.S. Court of Appeals revives lawsuit over $60 million sale of "Pork the Other White Meat" slogan

In a setback for the federal "checkoff" generic advertising and promotion program for pork, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia on August 14 revived a lawsuit (.pdf) brought by Iowa pork farmer Harvey Dillenburg and the Humane Society of the United States (HSUS).

Dillenburg and the HSUS objected to a 2006 deal in which the semi-public federal pork checkoff program agreed to pay $60 million to the National Pork Producers Council (a private-sector trade association). The U.S. Food Policy blog began investigating this strange transaction shortly afterwards, and I eventually filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request to acquire the appraisal documents that supposedly justified this large payment. To this day, the checkoff program pays $3 million in producer money each year to the NPPC for the "Pork the Other White Meat" slogan, even though the slogan is barely used any more.

A lawsuit by Dillenburg and HSUS was dismissed in 2013, on grounds that Dillenburg lacked standing. The new ruling this week by the federal appeals court reversed the ruling, saying that it is plausible that Dillenburg and other pork farmers were harmed by the "sweetheart deal" between the pork checkoff program and the NPPC.

Some pork industry organizations may want to revise their smug 2013 press statements about the lawsuit's earlier dismissal. The lawsuit will proceed in the lower court on its merits. The U.S. Court of Appeals did not tell the lower court how to rule, but it did give an eloquent and coherent summary of the problems with the $60 million sale.

Some pork producers who follow this story may wonder about the way their money has been spent. Quite understandably, producers may not be too vocal in endorsing a lawsuit in which the Humane Society is a party, because the society has been critical of the pork industry on several grounds in the past. Still, I imagine that some pork producers who read the new ruling (.pdf) will find it sensible.

Read additional coverage by Jack Bouboushian at Courthouse News Service ("Pork Board Must Answer for Spending Millions on Dead Slogan") and by Agri-Pulse:

In court documents, the plaintiffs of the case claim the Pork Board “did not buy the slogan (from NPPC) for its value as a marketing tool.” Rather, they say the purchase - to be doled out in $3 million increments for the next 20 years - was used “as a means to cut a sweetheart deal with (NPPC) to keep (NPPC) in business and support its lobbying efforts.” They say the board “overpaid for the slogan” and that the Pork Board's shift to the “Pork: Be Inspired” campaign “makes the initial slogan all but worthless.”

U.S. pork producers and importers pay $0.40 per $100 of value when pigs are sold and when pigs or pork products are brought into the U.S. to fund the checkoff. It is a violation of the federal orders that established checkoffs to use funds for lobbying interests. In a blog post, HSUS CEO Wayne Pacelle called the ruling “a potentially enormous win for animal welfare groups, small farmers, and environmentalists - since they've all felt the wrath of the NPPC's intense lobbying efforts.”

Seeking your input on Food Policy in the United States: An Introduction

Please send any input as we take early steps toward planning a possible future second edition of Food Policy in the United States: An Introduction (Routledge/Earthscan, 2013).

• What topics would you like to see enhanced?
• What new topics would you like to see introduced?
• What current material should be corrected or clarified?
• Where have you previously seen this book used in courses, and what were its strengths and weaknesses?
• What new courses might this book serve with the right improvements?

Already on my "to do" list for possible development:

• New online instructor materials,
• Updated information about the 2014 Farm Bill and other recent legislation,
• New material about food waste and food justice, and
• Updated statistics for figures and tables, along with current hyperlinks to the data sources.

The new edition may retain the same basic "pitch" as the first edition (but do send advice on possible modifications):

This book offers a broad introduction to food policies in the United States. Real-world controversies and debates motivate the book’s attention to economic principles, policy analysis, nutrition science and contemporary data sources. It assumes that the reader's concern is not just the economic interests of farmers, but also includes nutrition, sustainable agriculture, the environment and food security. The book’s goal is to make US food policy more comprehensible to those inside and outside the agri-food sector whose interests and aspirations have been ignored.

The chapters cover US agriculture, food production and the environment, international agricultural trade, food and beverage manufacturing, food retail and restaurants, food safety, dietary guidance, food labeling, advertising and federal food assistance programs for the poor.

In revision, I would seek to preserve features that have been well-received in the first edition. Here is some of the intelligence we have about that reception after publication:

• Feedback from university courses in public health, nutrition, agricultural and applied economics, public policy, and other fields.
• Honorable mention for the 2014 Quality of Communication Award from the Agricultural and Applied Economics Association (AAEA),
• Reviews in Agribusiness, Food Anthropology, Marion Nestle's Food Politics, Food Tank, Industrial Ecology, and the book's Amazon page.

Your input will be influential. Please feel free to use my Tufts email, the comments field for this post, and/or Twitter @usfoodpolicy . Thanks!