Dairy-checkoff dollars are going back where they belong: Promoting milk, not underwriting ESG and the climate-industrial complex.
Posted by Leslie Eastman
It appears that America’s dairy farmers have been milked to finance someone else’s climate agenda.
That fleecing is ending as the Trump administration continues to cull Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) from American policy.
Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins has announced that USDA is ending dairy checkoff funding for ESG projects, including greenhouse-gas and net-zero initiatives pursued by the Innovation Center for U.S. Dairy.
Today, U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Brooke L. Rollins reaffirmed the Administration’s commitment to American farmers, announcing the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) decisive action to end dairy checkoff funding for Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) overregulation. This action aligns research and promotion activities with the Department’s priorities and the original mission of the checkoffs. USDA remains committed to ensuring that every dollar collected from American producers serves American agriculture for the better.
“American dairy producers, cattle ranchers, and farmers pay checkoff assessments so those dollars can build demand for their products – not bankroll radical climate agendas that raise costs and constrain production,” said U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Brooke L. Rollins. “Today’s action returns the Dairy Checkoff and all research and promotion programs to their core mission: expanding markets and supporting the hardworking men and women who feed this country. We will not allow producer dollars to underwrite mandates that put American agriculture at a disadvantage.”
The Innovation Center for U.S. Dairy, created through the checkoff program, apparently has undertaken extensive ESG initiatives, and the Agricultural Marketing Service has been directed to evaluate the other 21 programs.
The agency identified several initiatives as supporting ESG activities, including Farmers Assuring Responsible Management (FARM) Environmental Stewardship, participation in Scope 3 greenhouse gas (GHG) accounting, the U.S. Dairy Materiality Assessment, U.S. Dairy Net Zero Initiative, Pathways to Dairy Net Zero, Greener Cattle Initiative, Sustainability Alliance and the U.S. Dairy Stewardship Commitment.
The letter noted that “other initiatives may also be misaligned with departmental policy,” and directs the Agricultural Marketing Service to evaluate the other 21 programs.
Dairy Management Inc. administers the dairy checkoff and has said it will comply with the directive.
The organization told DTN it would review projects and take the necessary steps to modify or terminate contracts and activities.
RealClearEnergy contributor Samantha Fillmore noted that Rollins highlighted the programs, Pathways to Dairy Net Zero (P2DNZ), a disastrous nongovernmental ESG initiative that targeted the dairy industry.
The report analyzes the effects of multinational nongovernmental ESG organizations like Pathways to Dairy Net Zero. From the large-scale analysis of how ESG mandates function, to the actual impact American Dairy emissions have on global emission standards, to food security and disruptions in the U.S. food supply, and foreign adversaries and competitors.
The USDA joined P2DNZ at COP26 in 2021 during the Biden administration under then-Secretary Tom Vilsack. Since then, participation in the cancerous ESG agenda has been grandfathered in.
On September 3, 2026, the report was sent to the USDA, along with a letter from Heartland Impact and Consumers Defense urging a deeper look into these harmful legacy-ESG programs hiding in plain sight. Both organizations are grateful to Secretary Rollins and the USDA for taking such quick action, for listening to the American Dairy Farmers that inspired the report, and for protecting American agriculture.
Secretary Rollins deserves credit for putting dairy-checkoff dollars back where they belong: Promoting milk, not underwriting the climate-industrial complex.
A broader review of commodity programs may reveal just how deeply ESG orthodoxy has curdled agencies meant to serve American agriculture.
For farmers compelled to pay these assessments, ending this climate grift is not merely sound policy…it is udderly overdue.
