Beef It’s a Bone of Contention
US - Cattle producers in Nebraska and other states are pushing for the first significant change to the national beef checkoff program since it started more than 20 years ago.
4 January 2008
1 minute read
The beef checkoff program is behind the popular "Beef, It’s What’s for Dinner" ads that feature the distinctive voice of actor Sam Elliott. At a dollar a head, the checkoff fee pools about $80 million annually for beef promotion, research and education, among other things.
* "There are so many more issues today, and the dollar doesn’t go as far as it used to" |
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National Cattlemen’s Beef Association representative, Don Ricketts.
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But more than two decades of inflation have decreased the buying power of that dollar, checkoff supporters say.
Some state chapters of the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association want Congress to hike the checkoff to $2, but others want producers who pay the checkoff to vote on whether it should rise. The program remains much the same since Congress authorized the U.S. Department of Agriculture to start it in the mid-1980s, association representative Don Ricketts said.
The Colorado-based group administers many of the checkoff dollars.
"There are so many more issues today, and the dollar doesn’t go as far as it used to," Ricketts said.
Ricketts said that under one proposal, future hikes in the checkoff would require only a vote of those who pay the checkoff and not approval from Congress.
The association plans to meet in February to vote on proposals and then lobby Congress.
Source: Columbia Daily Tribune
