News

Don’t hijack the Checkoff

The Indiana Beef Cattle Association joined 44 other state cattlemen’s associations in sending a letter to Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack opposing an additional beef checkoff under the 1996 General Commodity Promotion, Research, and Information Act.

Joe Moore, executive vice-president of ICBA says one of the concerns is that the 1996 Act fails to assure that there will be state beef councils.  “The 1996 Act is subject to government, not producer direction,” he says. “We are fearful that the government’s ongoing power to change the industry’s fortunes through agency orders and executive action – wouldn’t require industry input.  And that is not the case right now.”

Moore tells Brownfield part of the reason the 1985 checkoff passed was because states were given control of their checkoff dollars.  “The idea of sending it all to a national group didn’t fly – that effort failed twice,” he says.  “But once they included the fact that each state would keep half of the dollar collected to promote beef within their state producers were much more amenable to that proposal.”

He adds that implementing a second checkoff could create additional confusion among beef producers.

The state beef organizations are asking producers to sign a petition directing the administration to abandon their efforts to take over the Checkoff.  A link can be found HERE.