In a landmark federal lawsuit filed this week, three independent Wisconsin dairy farmers are taking on the U.S. Department of Agriculture and United States Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins. The case, Swan et al. v. Rollins et al., was filed in U.S. District Court on June 9, 2026. The Wisconsin Plaintiffs include a Westfield family farmer and vocal advocate Abby Swan, Adam Faust of Chilton and Christopher Baird of Ferryville.
The suit brought by the Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty (WILL) challenges the decades-old federal Dairy Checkoff program as an unconstitutional subsidy that diverts farmer dollars into radical ESG and climate agendas instead of its original purpose — to promote and sell American milk through promotional advertising initiatives such as the “Got Milk?” campaign.
Dairy farmers sell milk by the hundredweight (cwt), which equals exactly 100 pounds of milk (or 11.6 gallons), rather than selling individual gallons. The plaintiffs argue that the mandatory 15-cent-per-hundredweight assessment on every hundred pounds of milk sold — generating hundreds of millions annually — has been hijacked by the green agenda movement and ESG programs.
Those dollars are now flowing to the Innovation Center for U.S. Dairy and related groups pushing net-zero mandates, greenhouse gas tracking, sustainability data collection, and ESG compliance requirements.
The result? Small and mid-sized family dairies — the backbone of rural Wisconsin communities — are being squeezed out. Subsequently, young people are leaving agriculture and local business who rely on the dairy industry face a shrinking customer base. “It’s decimating the ag industry,” Swan warned, describing a domino effect that will hollow out rural economies.
In a candid interview with Heartland Post, Abby Swan, a former registered nurse who returned to the family dairy operation full-time described receiving an unexpected call from a sustainability data collector known as EverEgg. Swan was told her farm was required to provide detailed operational data — herd information, feed, energy use, and more.
When she pushed back, her milk processor delivered the final blow: participate or risk losing the ability to ship and sell milk. “They hold you hostage,” Swan recounted. “You can’t even ship your milk or you can’t sell it at all if you don’t do it.”
Despite claims that programs like the FARM ES or net-zero initiatives are “voluntary,” the reality is the programs are mandatory in order to keep a farm open for business.
Processors face demands from massive buyers like Nestlé and Starbucks; those demands roll downhill to smaller family farms. Many of the top processors are foreign-owned — 15 of the top 20 dairy food processors selling in the U.S. are based in Canada, France, Switzerland, China, India, Australia, and elsewhere.
Swan’s frustration boiled over into a viral TikTok video that caught the attention of Secretary Brooke Rollins.
Organizations like the Innovation Center, created under Dairy Management Inc. (DMI) focuses heavily on climate and sustainability programs. Dairy farmers are forced to fund these organizations that then develop and promote the very mandates increasing their regulatory and compliance burden.
WILL Deputy Counsel Rebecca Furdek said, “It is fundamentally Orwellian that American dairy farmers are still being forced to subsidize the very organizations effectively regulating them out of business in the name of ‘sustainability.’”
Swan said, “Dairy farmers are funding a threat to our own existence.”
The WILL complaint does not seek to eliminate the check-off entirely. It asks the court to stop the misuse of funds for activities beyond the statutory scope of promotion, research, and nutrition education under the 1983 Dairy Production Stabilization Act. It also raises First Amendment concerns about compelling farmers to subsidize ideological speech and advocacy they fundamentally oppose.
The federal program isn’t the only ESG initiative targeting dairy farmers. Swan says groups like Clean Wisconsin, which recently issued statements pushing aggressive “regenerative” mandates including rotational grazing requirements, planting trees in fields and pastures, and moving away from high-protein alfalfa feed to grasses with deeper roots but far lower nutritional value.
She says if these policies were fully imposed, it could slash Wisconsin milk production by upwards of 57%, effectively forcing the closure of many small family farms — an ongoing crisis that has plagued rural Wisconsin communities for decades.
Swan is equally frustrated with the lack of attention this program has gotten in various ag-friendly media outlets. “There isn’t one ag publication truly independent on this.” She said most outlets either support the checkoff program and ESG initiatives or remain silent on the topic altogether.
America’s Dairyland produces more milk than any other state. Family farms represent not just economic output but a way of life in our state. “This shit has been going on under multiple administrations, and nobody wanted to fix it” until public pressure mounted. This lawsuit represents farmers finally saying “enough.”
The Heartland Post will continue to follow this this case and provide updates once available.
