Source: Tom Johnston, MEATINGPLACE, 4/26/16


USDA’s Agricultural Marketing Service has approved continuing annual payments by the National Pork Board to the National Pork Producers Council for four “Pork. The Other White Meat” trademarks.

USDA reviewed the value of the four trademarks, which the Pork Board bought from NPPC in 2006 for some $35 million to be paid over 20 years, amidst a lawsuit by the Humane Society of the United States that challenges the purchase agreement.

As directed by AMS, the Pork Board contracted an independent expert to determine the current value of the trademarks, with input from HSUS and NPPC. The expert ultimately concluded that the value of the trademarks — between $113 million and $132 million — was worth more than the original purchase price and the remaining principal balance ($20.5 million). “Therefore, AMS is approving the continuing payments under the agreement,” the agency said in a statement on its website.

HSUS, along with a lone Iowa farmer and the Iowa Citizens for Community Improvement, filed a lawsuit in 2012 against the USDA to scrap the deal on fears that Pork Checkoff funds would be illegally used for pork industry lobbying efforts. USDA oversees the checkoff program administered by the Pork Board.

A year later, a U.S. District Court dismissed the suit saying it had no legal standing. However, in August 2015, a federal appeals court reinstated the lawsuit, and USDA agreed to review the transaction.

In its statement announcing its decision to continue payments, USDA notes that its general counsel has sent a letter to the Pork Board warning that the board’s advisement urging Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack to mount a vigorous defense in this case violated federal law and AMS rules prohibiting its research and promotion boards (such as the Pork Board) from using mandatory assessment funds (such as checkoff funds) to lobby. USDA’s general counsel gave the Pork Board 30 days to account for and reimburse all checkoff funds related to that advisement and ordered remedial training on the proper use of checkoff funds.

Matt Penzer, special counsel for HSUS, told Meatingplace the organization would continue its legal challenge.
“If the government won’t do the right thing and stop these funds from being unlawfully funneled to a lobbying group to fuel activities harmful to family farmers and animal welfare, then we’ll seek to protect them in court,” he said in an email.

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