USDA Ends ESG Checkoff Funding. What Happens to Existing Projects?

Dairy farmers help fund a national checkoff. They deserve a clear account of what that money supports—and what changes when USDA changes the rules.

On September 17, 2026, USDA directed research and promotion boards away from activities it identifies as environmental, social and governance projects, including net-zero and climate-neutral initiatives. A separate letter addressed the National Dairy Promotion and Research Board.

As of October 15, those directives set agency policy; they did not show that every existing project or contract had ended.

What USDA directed

The dairy board letter says checkoff money should not fund the covered ESG activities. The broader memorandum directs the Agricultural Marketing Service to identify relevant contracts and determine whether they can continue, be modified or be terminated, consistent with applicable law and contract terms.

In other words, an instruction to change spending and a completed contract termination are separate events. To understand what actually changed, farmers need the project names, the amounts involved and the decisions made under the new policy.

The administration presents the directive as keeping checkoff work focused on the programs' authorized purposes.

Whose money is involved?

USDA describes the dairy promotion program as supporting promotion, research and nutrition education. Domestic producers pay an assessment of 15 cents per hundredweight of milk; the program also has an assessment on imported dairy products.

Those assessments are the reason this is a producer-accountability story. The public debate should explain where the dollars go, what the funded work was meant to accomplish and what replaces it if it ends.

A change in a research budget does not automatically establish a change in a farmer's milk price or a family's grocery bill.

What to watch now

The useful follow-up is a public accounting, not a victory lap. Which projects were identified? Which contracts could legally be changed? Were any costs or obligations left behind? What work will receive those dollars instead?

Farmers with different views on climate policy can still ask for that information. Knowing how an assessment is spent should not require agreeing with every administration that oversees it.

The next development to watch is the agency's documented handling of the affected projects.