BELLE PLAINE, Canada. – Cattle producers have been managing one of the most emblematic marketing campaigns in the country for 35 years, but now many want to end the program that created the “Beef. It’s about dinner. ”
What is the cattle of the ranchers? Is that its mandatory rate of $ 1 per head of cattle sold does not specifically promote U.S. beef at a time when imports are flooding the market and vegetable-based “fake meat” products are proliferating in stores of groceries.
“The American consumer is deceived at the meat counter and our control funds do nothing to help create clarity or answer the question of where this steak was born, raised and harvested,” he said. say Karina Jones, a Nebraska rancher and field director for the R-CALF USA trading group who wants to end the checkoff.
Opponents of the beef control program, which was established by federal law in 1986, are urging livestock producers to sign a petition calling for a referendum vote on ending the program.
Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack last month granted an extension until Oct. 3 to collect the necessary signatures due to the coronavirus pandemic.
Proponents of the petitions argue that beef control is a mandatory assessment by the government to fund the government’s speech. By law, funds for meat recovery cannot be used to advertise against other meats such as pork or chicken, nor can they be used to lobby. But they complain about a lot of money, even though they favor pressure groups like the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association that oppose mandatory country-of-origin labels.
They also point out that the current U.S. livestock industry is radically different from what was done when the control program was launched, with more imported meat and a higher concentration of meat.
“We are now paying the advertising bill for four large meat packaging plants that are able to import beef and get it from cheaper countries and mislead our consumers,” Jones said.
The petition has created a schism in the livestock industry between those who support control and those who do not.
But consumers are also involved.
One way to analyze this is that consumers probably would not like the control program because it raises beef prices and some consumer groups oppose it, for that reason, said Harry Kaiser, director of the Program. of Product Promotion Research at Cornell University. Another way to look at it is that control also funds research on meat safety and the development of new meat products, he said.
“Consumers pay a few cents more, but it’s a safer product, a better quality product,” Kaiser said.
Kaiser, which conducts research for the U.S. Department of Agriculture on commodity advertising and promotion programs, wrote in an economic analysis that domestic beef demand between 2014 and 2018 would have been 14.3% lower without consumer advertising and other promotional activities of beef promotion and Research Board. In 2019, the board had a budget of $ 40.5 million to invest in activities aimed at increasing beef demand.
Kaiser also noted in a telephone interview that the marketing research funded by the check found that one of the reasons consumers have been reluctant to buy beef is because they felt it took too long to prepare. after returning home from work. This led to the development of easier-to-prepare beef products that consumers can buy at the supermarket and put into the microwave for cooking.
But livestock producers say it has been two decades since withdrawal-funded beef innovations, such as flat iron fillet, a high-value cut that came from a low-value area of the channel that had previously just been turned into a toast.
Since 1966, Congress has authorized industry-funded research and promotion boards to help agricultural producers pool resources and develop new markets. According to its website, the USDA’s agricultural marketing service now oversees 22 such commodity programs.
The mandatory nature of the various commodity control programs has been controversial, leading to thousands of lawsuits over the years. Three cases came to the U.S. Supreme Court with mixed results, Kaiser said.
The nation’s highest court ruled in 1997 in a case of fruit farmers that commodity advertising was constitutional because it was part of a broader regulatory program. But four years later, the Supreme Court ruled that a federally mandated mushroom advertising program was not part of a larger regulatory program and was therefore unconstitutional, as it required private speech. And in 2005, the Supreme Court ruled that the beef control program was constitutional for government speech reasons.
While these programs are now constitutional as part of a broader regulatory scheme, Kaiser said a conservative Supreme Court could overturn those precedents, which are similar to requiring workers to be unionized.
It’s not the first time critics with the beef control program have tried to fight enough signatures on a petition. The Agricultural Marketing Service received a request from livestock producers in 1999 and determined that the signatures were less than the required number.
It is necessary to sign the petition of 10% of domestic livestock producers (in this case 88,269 valid signatures) to put the issue before the Secretary of Agriculture. Any livestock producer who has owned, sold or purchased livestock from July 2, 2020 to July 1, 2021 is eligible to sign the petition. Vilsack would then decide whether to hold a referendum to end the program.
So far, opponents of the withdrawal have amassed about 30,000 signatures, Jones said.
Kansas rancher Steve Stratford, one of the people who initiated the petition, said meat packers (who do not pay in the payment program) are the ones who have an increased profit margin while payment exists.
“Long summary: the person who pays the dollar is not the one who gets the benefits of better demand and higher meat prices,” Stratford said.
But Greg Hanes, the CEO of the beef board that runs the control program, said when it was established there was a “conscious decision” not to involve packers to be pushed by producers. He noted that market dynamics are always changing and sometimes packers are better than producers and sometimes producers do better than packers.
Hanes defended the control, saying it is especially important for nutrition research and that without the program consumers would not get information about the benefits of meat.