Source: Michael Fielding, MEATINGPLACE, 3/13/15


The Beef Checkoff Enhancement Working Group (BCEWG) on Friday signed a revised memorandum of understanding (MOU), agreeing to increasing the program’s assessment to $2 from $1 per head.
Highlights of the revised MOU include:
• The organizations will support legislation to increase the current Beef Checkoff Program of $1 per head to $2 per head.
• Within a year of the legislation being signed into law, a referendum will be conducted among beef producers and beef importers to increase the assessment. If a majority of the Beef Checkoff Program payers indicate they would like to increase the assessment, the rate would increase.
• Assessments will continue to be collected as they are now and state beef councils will have the authority to retain 50 percent of the assessment.
• A refund of the additional assessment amount, but not the current $1 per head, will be available to beef producers paying into the checkoff.
• Every five years, the Secretary of Agriculture will publicize a 30-day comment period of time during which assessment payers may request a referendum vote on the continuation of the program and a change to the assessment rate. If 10 percent or more payers request such a referendum, a timely referendum will be held.
• The new Joint Nominating Committee, which will recommend candidates to serve on the Beef Promotion Operating Committee (BPOC), will include members from the Cattlemen’s Beef Board, the Federation of State Beef Councils and other national organizations representing beef checkoff payers.
• The Cattlemen’s Beef Board will annually provide all interested eligible contractors information and training on the contracting process.

The Working Group proposal is the latest step forward in three years of negotiations and arguments within the industry about how to revise the current beef checkoff program.

Frustrated by the industry’s inability to reach consensus, last October Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack threatened to institute another beef industry checkoff program to run parallel to the existing one.
Vilsack withdrew the proposal in December after Congress stipulated that funds not be approved to create the second checkoff in the 2015 omnibus appropriations bill.

The program is a producer- and importer-funded marketing and research program designed to increase global demand for beef. It is funded through a $1-per-head assessment each time cattle are sold. Due to inflation, that assessment, which was implemented in 1986, has deflated to $.47.

The seven organizations that a part of the Working Group are the American Farm Bureau Federation, the American National CattleWomen, Inc., the Livestock Marketing Association, the Meat Import Council of America, the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association, the National Livestock Producers Association and the National Milk Producers Federation.

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