Support for the beef checkoff remains high, despite weather and economic pressures facing the industry, according to a recent survey of U.S. beef and dairy producers. Checkoff support, at 74 percent – about even with January 2012 findings – remains at historic highs.
The nationwide survey of 900 beef and dairy producers conducted by the independent firm Aspen Media & Market Research in late June and early July 2012 found that an overwhelming majority of beef and dairy producers continue to believe that their beef checkoff has value for them in many ways:
• Eight out of 10 producers say the beef checkoff has helped to contribute to a positive trend in beef demand.
• Seven out of 10 producers say the beef checkoff contributes to the profitability of their operations, is there for them in a crisis, and represents their interests.
• Two in three beef producers believe the checkoff is well managed.
“Despite being challenged by drought, economic uncertainty and groups that would like to see us go out of business, beef and dairy producers continue to see more in their Beef Checkoff Program than just paying for a few ads or a few promotions," says Joint Producer Communications Committee (JPCC) Chairman Hank Maxey Jr., a producer from Chatham, Va. "I’m one of the seven out of 10 who have seen that the checkoff ‘has helped contribute to the profitability’ of our own operations."
According to the survey, Maxey continues, “the beef checkoff has, for nearly 26 years, served the beef industry with programs producers want and that we see as working for us to ‘contribute to a positive trend in consumer demand for beef.’”
One of the key priorities of the checkoff committee Maxey chairs is to ‘increase the understanding of how the checkoff works … how [it] benefits them and their role as stakeholders,’ he notes.
“It’s an increasingly completive world, and for beef producers to continue to succeed we have to be able to not only produce a safe, healthful and sustainable product, we have to promote its benefits in this country and worldwide. We can only do this by working together through the beef checkoff,” he says.
A copy of the research report is available online.
For more information about your beef checkoff investment, go to MyBeefCheckoff.com.
The Beef Checkoff Program was established as part of the 1985 Farm Bill. The checkoff assesses $1 per head on the sale of live domestic and imported cattle, in addition to a comparable assessment on imported beef and beef products. States retain up to 50 cents on the dollar and forward the other 50 cents per head to the Cattlemen's Beef Promotion and Research Board, which administers the national checkoff program, subject to USDA approval.
Source: The Beef Checkoff Program
