10/10/08 Beef checkoff suggestions

A subcommittee of the Cattlemen's Beef Board has reviewed comments from beef industry groups about ways to improve the beef checkoff program. Arkansas cow-calf operator Tom Jones chairs the eleven member committee that sifted through 250 suggestions send in by about 50 stakeholders. Jones says the advice they got runs the gamut. JONES "How the checkoff is collected. Who and how it can be contracted. Certainly there have been comments made about the rate of the checkoff and its status and should it be changed." His subcommittee will forward its recommendations to the Beef Board's Executive Committee on November 5th which then will make recommendations to the full Beef Board in January. He says names of those who made the suggestions have been erased so there is no bias in voting. In the end Jones says the Board's recommendations will go to the Secretary of Agriculture for consideration. JONES "The recommendations can go forward from the Secretary themselves or any member of Congress can pick up the recommendations and go forth or industry groups can lobby for the passage by Congress." Today's Idaho Ag News Bill Scott