Some are talking about Check-off programs for hemp. That one of the two groups has a long history of hurting hemp, killing one market after another, is not surprising when you realize a Check-off program is unconstitutional, hurts U.S. farmers, and encourages imported hemp products.
It’s also unfair as some segments will underwrite marketing for others; fiber might subsidize CBD, for instance. It’s a bad idea at a bad time for hemp, only legal three years now, with the number of acres harvested down substantially.
From Reason Magazine: “Checkoff programs are an expensive, pointless, and unconstitutional imposition on the rights of farmers and ranchers to market their food as they see fit. Marketing beef, of course, is not a problem—no more than, say, marketing soap is a problem. If some ranchers choose to band together and buy ads touting the awesomeness of their meat on their own time and dime, there’d be no issue. But that’s not how the checkoff program works. Rather, the problem with the beef checkoff is that it’s a mandatory program that forces ranchers to participate and raises prices for consumers.”