For the vast majority of Americans, their tie to the beef checkoff comes from commercials with sizzling T-bone steaks, the upbeat background composer Aaron Copland's "Rodeo" music and the cowboy drawl of actor Sam Elliott.
Though known by consumers for those iconic ads, the checkoff also funds a significant amount of education for cattle producers. And its investments in research have led to the reduction in bacteria such as E. coli O157:H7, as well as the development of new beef products such as the increasingly popular flat-iron steak.
The checkoff, a $1 fee producers pay when they sell cattle, has undoubtedly enhanced the cattle industry since its creation by Congress in 1985. Now, the beef industry is expected to go through a process that could take two years or more to try and retool the checkoff and increase the fees to cattlemen.
REFERENDUM PROPOSED. At the National Cattlemen's Beef Association (NCBA) convention earlier this year, the group's board of directors asked Congress to approve a producer referendum on the Beef Act that would provide cattlemen, at regular intervals, to petition for a referendum on continuing the beef checkoff. A vote would come after 10% of producers sign a petition at USDA offices to trigger a vote within a year.
Rather than having to again go to Congress for subsequent changes, the resolution seeks a similar process for producers voting to increase the checkoff. If 10% of beef producers sign a petition seeking an increase, that would trigger a vote.
While lamenting the lost purchasing power of a dollar since the late 1980s, NCBA'S board of directors avoided passing a resolution that would tie the checkoff to a specific dollar increase, such as bumping the fee from $1 to $2.
Instead, the resolution seeks an "assessment rate for the purpose of adequately funding an effective beef-building program. They didn't want it to be about $2," says Jay Truitt, NCBA's vice president of government affairs. "They wanted it to be about modifying the process."
Chuck Kiker is a Texas cattle feeder who sits on the board of the U.S. Cattlemen's Association and also is a committee member for the Cattlemen's Beef Board. He says there will be intense interest among cattle organizations once Congress agrees to listen to the industry's pleas to change the checkoff.
"I think there is a lot of support for changes," Kiker says. "It's just a question of the kind of changes each group wants."
Changing or increasing the checkoff affects the $88 million collected each year to fund the 45 state beef councils, the Federation of State Beef Councils and the Cattlemen's Beef Board. Little wonder there is some anxiety about tinkering with the checkoff.
"When you look at making changes to something like this, you have to look at that old doctor's motto, 'First, do no harm,' " says Ken Stielow, a Kansas rancher and immediate past president of the Cattlemen's Beef Board.
Changing the checkoff has to be thoroughly vetted by the industry as a whole. Industry groups have to show they are effectively on the same page while acknowledging there will always be people who disagree. Going to Congress will put the checkoff under scrutiny as changes are proposed.
"All of us believe that regardless of what the decision of [NCBA] is, there is a lot of work to be done to talk to just the producer at the fork of the creek about what his interests are, what his goals are, what he wants to support, how this is really going to get defined," Truitt points out.
It will take time, potentially two years or more, before an actual vote might occur on changing or increasing the beef checkoff. Given that it is a presidential election year, Congress is unlikely to hold any hearing on the checkoff before at least next year.
"None of this is on the fast track," explains Michael Kelsey, executive director of the Nebraska Cattlemen, an NCBA affiliate. "We have to get out and talk to the countryside as well."
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CALL FOR CHANGE. While the checkoff has promoted beef consumption, the program has always been controversial among producers who don't see that their interests are represented by the checkoff or want periodic votes on it.
As recently as 2005, the beef checkoff was ruled constitutional by the U.S. Supreme Court following a lawsuit by some cattlemen and sale barns.
Shortly after the court case was decided, NCBA members began raising questions about changing the checkoff and potentially increasing the $1 assessment.
An industry task force filled with NCBA-affiliated groups backed changes to the checkoff despite resistance from a handful of organizations who want even more changes.
For some livestock groups, getting support of their members would force a radical change in advertising policy for the checkoff. Since its inception, ads bought by the Cattlemen's Beef Board or the State Federation of Beef Councils have only promoted generic beef. With 90% of the checkoff funds coming from U.S. cattlemen, some groups want the checkoff to spend at least a portion of ad money promoting U.S. beef.
"The lion's share of the program is funded by U.S. cattle producers, and we ought to be using that money to promote the beef that these producers are raising," says Bill Bullard, chief executive officer of the Ranchers and Cattlemen's Action Legal Fund (R-CALF). "It's their money." R-CALF and other groups have strong data to make their case that U.S. cattle producers want to promote U.S. beef.
The same survey by the Gallup Organization that showed 72% of producers back the checkoff also showed that 92% of cattle producers support using at least a portion of money to promote only U.S.-born and raised beef. The survey polled more than 8,000 cattle producers in 2006.
As now constructed, the checkoff can't make a distinction between domestic and imported beef in promotion, which has limited arguments about promoting the quality of one country's beef over another. That issue becomes redefined, however, possibly later this year when USDA implements country-of-origin labeling for meat.
Importers now pay about $8 million annually in checkoff dues, and there are importers represented on the Cattlemen's Beef Board. "They are very good beef board members and they are active in beef promotion," Kansas' Stielow says.
The Livestock Marketing Association represents the nation's sale barns and wants to see the National Federation of State Beef Councils broken off from its direct ties to NCBA. The association also hopes for broadening the number of entities allowed to apply for checkoff funds.
In 2006, the industry task force rejected the idea of separating the federation from NCBA. Instead, the group stated there needed to be more understanding of what the federation does and the "firewalls" between the federation and policy divisions of NCBA. The group also recommended changing the name of the federation.
Leaders of the federation acknowledge they often don't have a good way to communicate the federation's role in the checkoff.
"It's a difficult explanation sometimes," federation chairman Gary Voogt of Michigan told NCBA members at the group's annual convention last February.
Besides generating a petition for cattle producers to back U.S. beef ads, the U.S. Cattlemen's Association also wants to see the National Federation of State Beef Councils, which is funded by money from state beef councils, break its ties to NCBA.
The federation is meant to receive and use checkoff funds from all cattlemen while NCBA is a policy and lobbying organization for cattle producers who pay dues to belong.
"It just doesn't seem like the checkoff was designed for one organization, a lobbying organization, to control 95 to 99% of those beef checkoff dollars," says Jim Hanna, a Nebraska cattle producer and chairman of the checkoff committee for the U.S. Cattlemen's Association.