South Dakota Branded-Beef Program Fails To Meet Expectations

PIERRE, S.D. — Launched with great hopes and fanfare eight years ago, the South Dakota Certified Beef program has so far fallen short of its goal of helping farmers and ranchers sell state-branded beef as a premium product commanding higher prices.

When then-Gov. Mike Rounds persuaded the 2005 Legislature to create the program, he envisioned a time when people across the nation and around the world would choose to pay more for steaks that carry a South Dakota seal of approval. He said codes on package labels could let buyers visit an Internet site to track the meat's origin, following it from a calf's birth to a feedlot and then a processor.

But that hasn't happened, largely because South Dakota hasn't had a meatpacking plant operating at a large scale that would make processing economical, officials say. They hope the long-delayed Northern Beef Packers plant in Aberdeen will soon fill that void.

In the first eight years of the program, only 16,386 cattle — a tiny slice of a state herd that approaches 4 million head — have been enrolled by farmers and ranchers. Only 500 have made it all the way through the program to be sold as meat from the program, mostly just within South Dakota from cattle processed by small custom meat lockers.

To read the rest of the story, please go to: Associated Press