Nonprofit the Animal Legal Defense Fund has sued* the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) to force it to release records concerning its oversight of the Beef Checkoff program, which the ALDF claims is producing “false and misleading” ads that present beef as environmentally friendly.
The Beef Checkoff program, which is funded through a mandatory $1 fee per head of cattle sold, has produced ads that the ALDF alleges “make claims that are misleading to reasonable consumers, such as… ‘Nicely done, beef. Your sustainable practices pump the brakes on climate change,’ and ‘Beef cattle grazing captures and stores so much carbon, it’s the equivalent of taking almost 6 billion cars off the road each year.’”
According to the ALDF, a promotional video on the @BeefForDinner YouTube channel claims that “Beef cattle are actually one of the most sustainable things on the planet” and “Cattle are actually . . . the key to sustainability for our future.”
Another checkoff-funded video claims, without qualification, that “How beef is raised is . . . good for the environment,” says the ALDF, “notwithstanding AMS’s [USDA’s Agricultural Marketing Service’s] recognition that such general environmental benefits claims are deceptive.”
According to the ALDF legal filing, “Even though industrial beef production is a significant contributor to the climate crisis—the industry is a major source of methane, nitrous oxide, carbon dioxide, and other greenhouse gas emissions, and is responsible for biodiversity loss, deforestation, and excessive water use —AMS has repeatedly approved Beef Checkoff-funded advertising and promotional content with false and misleading claims about beef’s climate and environmental impacts.”
AMS guidelines note that environmental marketing claims funded by checkoff dollars “should not overstate, directly or by implication, an environmental attribute or benefit” of a product and further explain that it is “deceptive” for a checkoff-funded ad “to misrepresent, directly or by implication that a product . . . offers a general environmental benefit.”
AMS guidelines state that all beef checkoff funded advertising and social media content must be reviewed and approved by AMS prior to publication, says the ALDF, which submitted a Freedom of Information Act request seeking records on AMS’s oversight of the checkoff program in January but says it has not yet received a response.
AMS’s violation “deprives ALDF and the public of information urgently needed to assess the government’s role in the promotion of activities harmful to animals and the climate,” claims the ALDF.
EWG: ‘There’s no such thing as low-carbon beef’
Some meat and dairy companies have come under fire in recent years for presenting their practices as environmentally friendly, while the ALDF has called on the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) to ban sustainability claims for all animal products.
Against this backdrop, the FTC is currently determining whether to “retain, modify, or rescind” its Green Guides, which provide guidance to marketers on how to make responsible environmental claims, but have not been updated since 2012. The Guides, which are not legally binding, are nevertheless frequently cited in “greenwashing” lawsuits, while some states have adopted them into state law, creating a confusing environment for manufacturers that operate in multiple states.
In public comments to the FTC, the Environmental Working Group has argued that “There is no such thing as ‘Low-Carbon Beef’ [a term now permitted by USDA for beef from cattle raised in a way that emits 10% less greenhouse gas than an industry baseline].”
In fact, claimed the EWG, “No food choice results in more greenhouse gas emissions than choosing beef… by any measure, choosing beef is a bad choice for the climate.”
The ALDF suit follows the introduction of bipartisan legislation from Senators Cory Booker and Mike Lee to reform federal checkoff programs, with Booker claiming that, “Checkoff dollars too often get channeled to lobbying groups who advocate against the best interests of many of the farmers who are required to pay into the program.”
*The case is Animal Legal Defense Fund v Agricultural Marketing Service and United States Department of Agriculture, filed on July 14 in the US District Court for the District of Columbia. Case number 1:25-cv-02227.
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