February 2, 2009

The US Cattlemen's Beef Board on Thursday (Jan 29) has recommended raising the fee that producers pay to fund beef marketing programmes.

If approved by Washington and by a vote of the US cattle producers, the fee would be increased to US$2 on each head of cattle that producers sell.

The current US$1 per head raises about US$86 million annually for beef marketing and research programmes. The fee has not been increased since 1986.

The fee needs to be increased as the cost of advertising and everything else has gone up, said Lynn Heinze, spokesperson for the Beef Board.

The proposal comes at a time when cattle producers are losing money on cattle sales due to high production costs.

However, Heinze said it will take a year or more for the proposal to move through the approval process before it can be implemented.