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Beef demand better than expected despite shrinking buying power of checkoff
The CEO of the National Cattlemen’s Beef Board says beef demand is responding to promotion efforts. Polly Ruhland says beef demand numbers are stronger than expected.
“We’re pretty happy with demand at this point in time,” Ruhland told Brownfield Ag News, at the Cattle Industry Convention in Nashville.”
Funds from the national dollar per head checkoff have been less because of the smaller U.S. cattle herd. And, although cattle numbers, and the number of dollars collected, have stabilized, Ruhland says that “stable” is much less than it used to be.
“The dollar’s worth about 49 cents compared to the time that the checkoff was passed, and as you know, the price of things just keeps skyrocketing,” she said. “So we’re dealing with half or less of the buying power that we were when the checkoff was passed.”
To make up the difference, some states have passed their own checkoffs in addition to the federal checkoff.
“It doesn’t surprise me,” she said, “given that understanding of how producers think about their investment in the federal checkoff that they would want to increase those investments at the state level and have more direct control over those investments.”
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