Embarrassing “Wood Milk” Campaign Shows Why Congress Must End Forced Farm Advertising

Hollywood star Aubrey Plaza recently caused a stir with a parody advertisement for “Wood Milk.” The ad was supposed to mock plant-based milks made from almonds, oats, or cashews and support dairy consumption, which has been lagging for decades. In the ad, she presses tree branches into a gloppy beverage that leaves a thick “milk mustache” on her upper lip.

Unfortunately for Plaza, she’s taken a lot of heat for the campaign. After posting the ad on her social media feed, she decided to shut down comments from disappointed fans expressing their disapproval. Many criticized her for taking a paycheck from the dairy industry and vowed to keep drinking their plant-based milks.

So, an ad meant to boost dairy consumption seems to have backfired, but the dirty secret of dairy advertising is that many dairy farmers don’t like the ads and don’t want to pay for them. This was also true back when the more popular “Got Milk?” ads ran nationwide.

The “Wood Milk” and “Got Milk?” ad campaigns were funded by a government-created program named the Milk Processor Education Program. The program is the brainchild of giant factory farms. These giant businesses run on economies of scale, so their marketing wants you to think that all milk is the same, regardless of where it comes from. According to the giant conglomerates, all that matters is whether you “got milk.”

This is the opposite of what small dairy farmers want. Small farmers want you to think about whether the farmers are local, how they treat the animals, and whether they use environmentally responsible methods. In fact, small farmers hope that you care enough about these issues to pay a few cents more instead of buying milk from the giant factory farms.

But the federal government forces small farmers to pay for these ads that they detest. The government imposes special fees on all dairy farmers and then spends that money on the ads promoting the giant farms’ message. The small farmers’ messaging has been drowned out in a sea of mass-produced milk, while the extra fees to pay for the ads push the small farmers out of business.

And this problem splatters far beyond milk. These federal programs exist for everything from eggs to mushrooms to cotton, and the approach is always the same: The federal government forces small farmers to pay for ads they hate promoting the giant factory farms’ message that the product is the same regardless of who provides it.

Not surprisingly, these unpopular programs have resulted in legal challenges. The First Amendment protects your right not to say things with which you disagree, and this includes paying for them. So, at first, some of the small farmers won. Dairy farmers Joseph and Brenda Cochran challenged the program and won an early legal victory.

But in a 2005 case brought by small cattlemen against the “Beef: It’s What’s for Dinner” campaign, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the government was really the one speaking in these ads. Therefore, according to the Court, the First Amendment did not apply. These federal “checkoff” programs have been out of control ever since, taking from small farmers in order to pay for ads that primarily benefit their well-heeled competitors. Ms. Plaza’s “wood milk” ad is just the latest example.

There is a bipartisan push to reform checkoff programs, but Congress should consider doing away with them altogether. Supreme Court Justices aren’t the only ones who take an oath to uphold the Constitution. Joseph and Brenda certainly weren’t asked whether they thought paying Plaza to shill for the industry and sell T-shirts was a good use of their money. The First Amendment protects both the right to speak and the right to be silent.

Justin Pearson, Institute for Justice Senior Attorney, contributed to this article.