National Cattlemen's Beef Association

The following letter has been distributed to National Cattlemen's Beef Association members by NCBA leadership:

July 28, 2005

To Our Fellow Cattlemen:

In recent days, there have been some questions concerning NCBA’s member-directed process. This process is at the very foundation of our organization, and we felt it was important to share this response with everyone.

The National Cattlemen’s Beef Association is the only cattlemen’s group that has the relationships and experience it takes to mobilize action in the federal government and with our trading partners to ensure there will be a future in this industry for the next generation of cattlemen.

That’s why cattlemen and state affiliates choose to belong to and participate in NCBA. NCBA is the way for cattlemen to come together and solve the industry’s toughest challenges. These cattlemen look around and realize no other organization gets it done for them.

Our cattlemen-directed trade policy is to position the U.S. cattle industry as the major exporter of beef products to economies around the world (NCBA’s member-directed policies are published at http://www.beefusa.org/newspolicybook.aspx). Our members believe trade surpluses are better than trade deficits, that the world presents an enormous demand-building and growth opportunity for U.S. cattlemen and that our product deserves to be sold to more than just the 4 percent of the world’s population that lives within our borders.

NCBA members also believe cattlemen lose when we take control out of cattlemen’s hands and put it in the hands of a few in black robes. When this happens, we give the ability to direct our future and manage our businesses to judges who know little about our industry or the science that says beef is safe from BSE.

It is extremely unfortunate that the only course of action other cattlemen groups have available to them is litigation. It is deeply disturbing to NCBA’s members, Executive Committee and State Affiliates that this litigious process placed such an inaccurate and damaging opinion of beef safety in front of our domestic and international consumers.

Economists around this country agree that the cattle prices we have experienced for many months now, prices that began to climb before the Canadian border closure, is the result of two things: tremendous growth in consumer demand and the cattle cycle.

A trade association can do little if nothing to affect the cattle cycle, but when it comes to beef demand it is clear the checkoff-funded efforts, many of which are managed by NCBA, have contributed considerably to increasing demand, which is defined as consumers’ willingness to pay increasing prices even as supplies increase. Again, through the leadership of cattlemen, NCBA is the association that gets it done for you.

It was NCBA, on December, 23, 2003, that defended consumer demand and gave consumers the reasons they needed to keep serving beef to their families. Never once did consumer confidence in beef’s safety drop.

It was this demand dynamic that we did not want to see jeopardized by the statements of one judge. Losing consumer confidence was a risk we were not willing to take. Hence, NCBA along with 29 of our state affiliates filed an amicus brief in the U.S. Court of Appeals in the 9^th Circuit to provide the science that says beef is safe from BSE.

NCBA’s Executive Committee discussed, at length, whether this action should be taken. We agreed that the officers and staff should take the issue to our affiliates to gauge their interests and concerns before any action was taken. After vetting the challenge with their leadership, 29 states determined it was our collective responsibility to defend beef’s safety on science, and the amicus brief was filed.

Some believe this filing was inconsistent with the 11-point member directive regarding trade with Canada. It is not. The beef safety messages articulated in this brief were the same ones we offered in hundreds of interviews, in statements and via the web to all of the American public following December 23, 2003. The amicus brief was filed to defend beef safety and prevent an erosion of consumer confidence in the event that the appellate court chose to ignore the science and rule there was “a genuine risk of death for U.S. consumers,” as the district court in Montana did. It is equally curious that some in our industry saw the district court’s opinion as a ‘win’ when it was such a scientifically flawed conclusion and, if it stood, had the potential of undoing consumer confidence in our product, here and around the world.

NCBA has accomplished many of our members’ 11 directives. Reopening the Asian markets remains our final priority. On this front we have:

- Called on USDA, U.S. Trade Representative and the Bush Administration to make reopening U.S. beef export markets their top priority, including a personal hearing with President George W. Bush January 11, 2005

o Agriculture Secretary Mike Johanns says the re-opening of U.S. beef export markets remain his top priority for the USDA.

o Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has visited Japan and has urged quick resolution to this matter in meetings with her Japanese counterparts. Linnet F. Deily, U.S. permanent representative to the World Trade Organization (WTO) says there is clear and sufficient scientific evidence for Japan to remove restrictions on U.S. beef and beef products in accordance with the WTO sanitary and phytosanitary measures.

o U.S. government delegations have traveled to Japan at each critical juncture to negotiate this agreement in person.

o Members of Congress have sent letters to the White House urging President Bush to "make the resumption of beef trade with Japan and other export markets a top priority in your Administration."

o Members of Congress have met with and sent letters to key Japanese officials, including Japanese Ambassador Ryozo Kato calling for Japan to end their ban on U.S. beef products.

- Represented U.S. cattlemen on a trip to Tokyo in December 2004 to meet with leading officials of the Japanese government and re-articulate the science that says our beef is safe

No other cattlemen’s organization can claim so many actions on cattlemen’s behalf.

To understand what has been done to achieve resolution on the other 10 points, we have continued to keep our members updated, with the most recent progress report issued July 13, 2005. The fact is NCBA had pushed on every front to regain access to Asia prior to the scheduled implementation of the ‘Minimal Risk Rule’ on March 7. The litigant’s actions and the district court’s decision took control out of cattlemen’s hands for nearly six months, but we are hopeful we can move beyond courts on this issue soon.

Our members have demanded that we seek normalization of trade because they want to regain the value we lost December 23, 2003, on every head of cattle. This can only be accomplished by setting the standard for trade based on science. Today, we have set that standard and we call on our Asian trading partners to follow the science and reopen their markets to U.S. beef.

We will have a long road ahead of us when these markets open given the erosion of consumer confidence in these countries due to misinformation about the science.
But, we will celebrate with our members when we have full and fair trade again because this opening will be another example of when we come together, we get it done.