Statement Regarding Continuation of National Beef Checkoff

A strengthening beef cattle industry will stay solid thanks to a ruling by the 8^th Circuit Court of Appeals yesterday.  The court granted a stay for the industry’s beef checkoff, which will allow collections in the 17-year-old national $1-per-head checkoff program to continue while the Justice Department and the Cattlemen’s Beef Promotion and Research Board take their case for protecting demand-building programs to the Supreme Court.

Beef producers don’t need to look far to see the benefits generated through this program.  Beef demand has been increasing since 1998.  Consumers are remembering, and embracing, the “Beef. It’s What’s For Dinner.^®” campaign.  New beef products – many of them created through the checkoff – are finding fans among consumers and marketers.  Food safety has improved, and consumer confidence in U.S. beef products has remained high.  The industry’s detractors know they are facing a strong, committed and unified industry when they try to attack beef’s increasingly important role in the diet. 

That’s why the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association has remained steadfast in its support for, and defense of, the national beef checkoff.  We believe the Beef Board and Justice Department are right to ask the Supreme Court to hear their arguments to continue this program, which 79 percent of voting beef producers sought to maintain in 1988, and a majority of producers in independent surveys regularly say they want.