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Capital Press - - - Friday
- - - Sept. 15, 2006 - - - 8:00 a.m. PDT
$2 beef
checkoff proposed
Implementation would
require amending federal law, marketing order
Tam Moore
Capital Press Staff Writer
A beef industry task force
looking at overhaul of the National Beef Checkoff last week sent a four-point
recommendation out for comment by the cattle and dairy industries.
Among recommendations is doubling the fee paid each time cattle change
ownership, from $1 to $2.
The recommendations, adopted at a Sept. 7 meeting in Kansas City, are a far cry
from the reform platform sought by the Ranchers-Cattlemen Action Legal Fund,
United Stockgrowers of America. They also fall short of suggestions generated a
half-dozen years ago and given the Cattlemen's Beef Board, the 108-person board
that administers the current checkoff on behalf of U.S. Department of
Agriculture. A later USDA report on all national checkoff programs in 2000
recommended a series of reforms that didn't make it through Congress.
It will take changes to both federal law and the USDA marketing order to
implement the 2006 proposal. The CBB and its members by law can't lobby for any
of the reforms. It's up to others in the industry to seek these or additional
changes.
The original checkoff began on a trial basis, then was validated by a nationwide
producer referendum. This time around task force members believe if a reform law
passes Congress, it, too, will be sent to a referendum before taking effect.
That could put the proposed package about two years from becoming reality.
John Houston, the retired beef promotion executive who had a hand in creating
the original checkoff put into federal law in 1985, facilitated the task force.
They were formed as part of a settlement between CBB and Livestock Marketing
Association, the auction yard trade group that lost a lawsuit when the U.S.
Supreme Court in 2005 ruled the checkoff constitutional.
These are the recommendations:
• Referendum. Revise the law so every five years cattle owners have the option
of petitioning the USDA for a referendum on continuation of the checkoff.
• $2. Raise the rate from $1 to $2 per head every time cattle change ownership,
and continue the 50-50 split of that checkoff between qualified state beef
councils and the federal program.
• Federation. Create a higher profile for the Federation of State Beef Councils,
since a 1996 merger an arm of National Cattlemen's Beef Association.
• Contractors. Open up the USDA's beef market order so research and promotion
primary contractors can be nonprofit organizations without regard to the date of
their founding. The current order limits primary contractors to outfits existing
in 1986.
Houston said while all four recommendations passed with two-thirds in favor,
some weren't unanimous.
Trade publications said doubling the checkoff passed 11-4.
"There was little chance to seriously consider any issues other than increasing
the assessment," said Jim Hanna, a task force member and chairman of R-CALF's
checkoff committee. He said in an interview that the 19-member task force was
dominated by NCBA affiliates and groups friendly to NCBA positions. Hanna was
among the no votes, saying R-CALF didn't even talk about increasing the checkoff.
R-CALF, at its annual meeting in January, lined up in support of continuing the
checkoff. But many members said they don't like the NCBA - an organization with
which they have public policy arguments - acting on their behalf with checkoff
funds.
The NCBA is the largest major checkoff contractor, running the national
advertising and promotion effort and coordinating research subcontracts that are
primarily carried out by university scientists.
Mike Johns, the Missouri cattleman who heads the NCBA, said it appears the
recommendations improve producer control of beef promotion and research through
state beef councils, and will continue to build beef demand. Johns didn't get
into specific comments on the recommendations.
The NCBA will take up the report, and possibly decide to seek changes to the
1985 law, during its annual meeting at the end of January.
R-CALF agrees on the periodic referendum position, disagrees on the $2 checkoff,
and got no traction on two other points its members sought going into the task
force:
• Allowing the CBB to directly contract with vendors for research and promotion
projects instead of going through master contractors such as the NCBA; and
• Designating checkoff funds for promotion of "born and raised in USA" beef in
addition to promoting imported beef.
The populist cattleman's organization also seeks to extend the checkoff to fresh
beef and beef products so packers shoulder direct costs for the industry
program. Some packers currently pay voluntary checkoff contributions.
Hanna said if the industry as a whole takes checkoff reform to Congress, R-CALF
will lobby for adding its reforms to the mix that came out of the task force.
Added to
’07 Farm Bill?
There was
talk in Kansas City last week of adding recommended reforms to the National Beef
Checkoff to the 2007 Farm Bill taking shape in Congress. Jim Hanna, the R-CALF
task force member, said this week that's one of many possibilities.
In a telephone interview from his ranch outside Brownlee, Neb., Hanna said each
of the task force participants will take the four recommendations back to their
organizations. They range from the National Farmers Union to American Farm
Bureau Federations.
"Then," he said, "you assume a number of groups will lobby Congress for
changes."
Because one of those changes is highly controversial - raising the checkoff from
$1 to $2 - Hanna said a producer referendum is certain to happen should enabling
legislation pass Congress. That could put implementation of checkoff reform a
lot further off than the 18 months to two years discussed last week.
"I'm thinking three years, plus," Hanna said. "I'm getting a little bit
jaundiced about the speed of government as I get older."
- Tam Moore
Tam Moore is based in Medford, Ore.
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