The president of the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association, Bob McCan, says “there have been honest differences of opinion” over beef checkoff reform during informal discussions among 11 livestock, marketing and import groups. The National Farmers Union has pulled out of the three-year-old discussions, saying consensus was impossible. NCBA’s McCan said in a statement, “We will continue to work with other industry organizations to look for ways to maximize the efficiency and effectiveness of the program. However, we should be careful about jeopardizing a beef checkoff that has overwhelming support from producers, and is having terrific success domestically and internationally.” Some groups say NCBA unfairly gets most of the checkoff money.
USDA published a Federal Register notice that too few soybean growers requested a referendum on whether to end the soybean checkoff. USDA said 324 growers petitioned in May for a referendum when 56,999 were needed to trigger one. The results were announced in July. USDA also published a notice modifying the method for deciding in the future how many producers must ask for a soybean referendum to trigger one.