The Cattlemen’s Beef Board (CBB) has decided to invest $39,380,000 into programs for beef promotion, research, consumer information, industry information, foreign marketing and producer communications during fiscal 2021.
The Beef Promotion Operating Committee (BPOC) met Sept. 9-10 in Denver, CO, to approve Beef Checkoff funding. The committee has 10 producers from the CBB and 10 producers from the Federation of State Beef Councils.
“Producers drive all the decisions that the BPOC makes during these important meetings,” said CBB and BPOC Chair Jared Brackett. “Cattlemen and women from across the U.S. and importers carefully consider every proposal to determine where we should spend these Checkoff dollars with one primary goal in mind—increasing beef demand to provide producers with the best possible value for their Checkoff investments.”
At the meeting, the committee approved funding for 13 authorization requests, granting funding to nine contractors for the 2021 fiscal year, which begins Oct. 1. The contractors brought $47,725,121 worth of funding requests to the BPOC, nearly $8,345,121 more than the funds available from the CBB budget, according to a CBB press release.
“Once again, our contractors came to these meetings with some incredibly innovative ideas and projects,” Brackett said. “As always, it’s a real challenge to balance the budget and distribute our limited amount of Checkoff dollars to these contractors in a way that we believe will best drive beef demand. I personally thank all our contractors and committee members for dedicating considerable time and effort to continue moving the beef industry forward.”
BPOC approved funding for the following national beef organizations:
• American Farm Bureau Foundation for Agriculture—$670,996;
• Cattlemen’s Beef Board—$1,689,915;
• Foundation for Meat and Poultry Research and Education—$646,144;
• Meat Import Council of America/Northeast Beef Promotion Initiative—$497,034;
• National Cattlemen’s Beef Association—$26,442,207;
• National Institute for Animal Agriculture—$89,466;
• North American Meat Institute—$994,068; and
• United States Meat Export Federation—$8,350,170.
The Beef Promotion and Research Act of 1985 requires the budget also be broken down by component, to give a better understanding of what funds are to be used for. According to CBB, the Fiscal Year 2021 Plan of Work for the Cattlemen’s Beef Promotion and Research Board budget includes the following components:
• $9.8 million for promotion programs, including continuation of the checkoff’s consumer digital advertising program, as well as veal promotion;
• $8.9 million for research programs, focusing on a variety of critical issues, including pre- and post-harvest beef safety research, product quality research, human nutrition research and scientific affairs, market research, and beef and culinary innovations;
• $7.3 million for consumer information programs, including a Northeast public relations initiative; national consumer public relations, including nutrition-influencer relations and work with primary- and secondary-school curriculum directors nationwide to get accurate information about the beef industry into classrooms of today’s youth;
• $3.3 million for industry information programs, comprising dissemination of accurate information about the beef industry to counter misinformation from anti-beef groups and others, as well as funding for checkoff participation in a fifth annual national industrywide symposium focused on discussion and dissemination of information about antibiotic use;
• $8.4 million for foreign marketing and education in 80 countries in the ASEAN region, Caribbean, Central America/Dominican Republic, China/Hong Kong, Europe, Japan, Korea, Mexico, Middle East, Russia/Greater Russian Region, South America, Taiwan and new markets; and
• $1.7 million for producer communications, which includes investor outreach using national communications and direct communications to producers and importers about checkoff results, as well as development and utilization of a publishing strategy and platform and a state beef council content hub.
The full budget totals around $43.1 million. Other than authorization request funding, other expenses included $254,000 for program evaluation; $445,000 for program development; $720,000 for USDA oversight, which includes $450,000 for Agricultural Marketing Service (AMS) oversight and $190,000 for CBB’s legal and compliance; and $2.1 million for CBB administration.
The FY 2021 budget is a reduction of 3.2 percent ($1.4 million) from FY 2020’s budget of $44.5 million. The authorization requests and budgets were sent to the CBB for approval, and must be approved by USDA’s AMS for review.
More information on the Beef Checkoff and its programs can be found at DrivingDemandForBeef.com or by contacting CBB at 303-220-9890. — Anna Miller, WLJ editor
