September 22, 2020

 

Investment of US$39,380,000 for US beef-related initiatives

 

The Cattlemen's Beef Board (CBB) in the United States will invest approximately US$39,380,000 into programmes for US beef promotion, research, consumer information, industry information, foreign marketing and producer communications during fiscal 2021, subject to USDA approval.

At the end of its September 9-10 meeting in Denver, Colorado, the Beef Promotion Operating Committee (BPOC) approved checkoff funding for a total of 13 "Authorization Requests" - or grant proposals brought by nine contractors for the fiscal year beginning October 1, 2021. The committee includes 10 producers from the Cattlemen's Beef Board and 10 producers from the Federation of State Beef Councils.

Nine contractors brought a total of US$47,725,121 worth of funding requests to the BPOC this week, nearly US$8,345,121 more than the funds available from the CBB budget.

"Producers drive all the decisions that the BPOC makes during these important meetings," said CBB and BPOC chair Jared Brackett. "Cattlemen and women from across the US and importers carefully consider every proposal to determine where we should spend these Checkoff dollars with one primary goal in mind - increasing beef demand to provide producers with the best possible value for their Checkoff investments."

"Once again, our contractors came to these meetings with some incredibly innovative ideas and projects. As always, it's a real challenge to balance the budget and distribute our limited amount of Checkoff dollars to these contractors in a way that we believe will best drive beef demand. I personally thank all our contractors and committee members for dedicating considerable time and effort to continue moving the beef industry forward."

In the end, the BPOC approved proposals from eight national beef organisations for funding through the financial year 2021 Cattlemen's Beef Board budget, as follows:

- American Farm Bureau Foundation for Agriculture, US$670,996

- Cattlemen's Beef Board, US$1,689,915

- Foundation for Meat and Poultry Research and Education, US$646,144

- Meat Import Council of America / Northeast Beef Promotion Initiative, US$497,034

- National Cattlemen's Beef Association, US$26,442,207

- National Institute for Animal Agriculture, US$89,466

- North American Meat Institute, US$994,068

- United States Meat Export Federation, US$8,350,170

Broken out by budget component –- as outlined by the Beef Promotion and Research Act of 1985 –- the Fiscal Year 2021 Plan of Work for the Cattlemen's Beef Promotion and Research Board budget includes:

- US$9.8 million for promotion programmes, including continuation of the checkoff's consumer digital advertising programme, as well as veal promotion;

- US$8.9 million for research programmes, focusing on a variety of critical issues, including pre- and post-harvest beef safety research, product quality research, human nutrition research and scientific affairs, market research, and beef and culinary innovations;

- US$7.3 million for consumer information programmes, including a Northeast public relations initiative; national consumer public relations, including nutrition-influencer relations and work with primary- and secondary-school curriculum directors nationwide to get accurate information about the beef industry into classrooms of today's youth;

- US$3.3 million for industry information programmes, comprising dissemination of accurate information about the beef industry to counter misinformation from anti-beef groups and others, as well as funding for checkoff participation in a fifth annual national industry-wide symposium focused on discussion and dissemination of information about antibiotic use;

- US$8.4 million for foreign marketing and education in 80 countries in the following regions: ASEAN region, Caribbean, Central America/Dominican Republic, China/Hong Kong, Europe, Japan, South Korea, Mexico, Middle East, Russia/Greater Russian Region, South America, Taiwan and new markets;

- US$1.7 million for producer communications, which includes investor outreach using national communications and direct communications to producers and importers about checkoff results, as well as development and utilisation of a publishing strategy and platform and a state beef council content hub.

The full fiscal 2021 Cattlemen's Beef Board budget is approximately US$43.1 million. Separate from the authorisation requests, other expenses funded include US$254,000 for programme evaluation; US$445,000 for programme development; US$720,000 for USDA oversight, which includes US$450,000 for AMS oversight and US$190,000 for CBB's legal and compliance; and US$2.1 million for CBB administration. The fiscal 2021 budget represents a decrease of 3.2%, or US$1.4 million from the US$44.5 million fiscal year 2020 budget.

All authorisation requests and budgets are now sent onto the full Cattlemen's Beef Board for approval, followed by the USDA's Agricultural Marketing Service for review, with a start date for the new fiscal year on October 1.

- Beef Checkoff