Seven national groups announced support for doubling the beef checkoff to $2 a head. The process would begin with passage by Congress of a bill allowing the $2 checkoff and would be followed within a year by a referendum among beef producers and importers whether to increase the checkoff, which as been $1 a head since 1986. Proponents say the $2 checkoff would offset the effects of inflation and the shrinkage in U.S. cattle numbers.
The seven signatories are the remnants of an ad hoc group that spent more than three years discussing improvements to the checkoff program without success. The National Farmers Union, which dropped out of the discussions last fall, said the agreement among the seven groups “is honestly a waste of everyone’s time” because it does not make “real reforms.” NFU says its is wrong for the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association to receive the lion’s share of the research and promotion funds from the checkoff.
About $80 million is generated annually by the checkoff. Half of it is kept for projects at the state level and half of it goes to the national Cattlemen’s Beef Board.
Signing the agreement were NCBA, American Farm Bureau Federation, American National CattleWomen, Livestock Marketing Association, Meat Import Council of America, National Livestock Producers Association, and National Milk Producers Federation.