Farmers call on DOGE to investigate billion dollar commodity checkoff fund

Former Missouri Democratic Lieutenant Governor Joe Maxwell, who has been a farmer since the 1980s, is calling on the Department of Government Efficiency to investigate commodity checkoff funds, having accused the $1 billion a year fund of being ridden with fraud and abuse.

“While farmers have been paying in billions, literally they have paid in billions of dollars into the commodity checkoff programs, we have lost hundreds of thousands of farmers,” Maxwell, who is with Farm Action Fund, told the Washington Examiner. “These checkoff programs tout that they have as much as $11 or $12 return on investment for every dollar invested, but that return is not going back to the farmer.”