The Agriculture Department is drafting a $1 a head beef checkoff program of its own that would run alongside the current $1 checkoff that is a lightning rod for complaints of favoritism. Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack told an informal cattle committee last week that USDA was acting under authority of a 1996 law because because the industry failed during three years of talks to agree on reforms to the beef checkoff, say two reports. A salient complaint from reformers is that the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association receives almost all of the money raised for beef research and promotion.
USDA intends to propose the new checkoff in the Federal Register for public comment as soon as drafting is completed, said NCBA president Bob McCan to Drovers CattleNetwork. The new checkoff would run for three years before cattle producers would vote whether to keep it or end it, said McCan, who said the new checkoff would undermine the existing program. “There would be a lot of duplicity and additional bureaucracy,” he said according to CattleNetwork. Former NCBA president Scott George told DTN, “This seems really seems like a step that doesn’t need to be taken.”
The checkoff generates around $40 million a year. Revenue has fallen with the decline in U.S. cattle inventory. The checkoff board has suggested a $2 checkoff but groups such as the National Farmers Union and R-CALF USA say the package must include regular referendums on keeping the checkoff and limits on awarding checkoff money to advocacy groups.