U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack has abandoned an unpopular proposal to create a second beef checkoff.
His announcement earlier this year of plans to pursue a new program that would have run parallel to the existing $1 checkoff was met by near universal opposition by the cattle and beef industry. And last week, Congress passed an appropriations bill that included a provision ordering the U.S. Department of Agriculture not to implement a second checkoff.
“I think the writing was fairly clear on the wall,” Nebraska Farmer’s Union President John Hansen said in reaction to Vilsack’s abandonment of the proposal.
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