Washington cattleman named to national Beef Checkoff committee

Washington Ag Today February 12, 2010 Waterville, Washington cow/calf producer Sid Viebrock has been named to a one-year term on the beef industry’s national Beef Promotion and Operating Committee. The action came at last week’s 2010 annual Cattle Industry Convention and Trade Show held in San Antonio. Viebrock is president of the Washington State Beef Commission. The Beef Promotion and Operating Committee decides the final annual budget and program priorities for the national beef check off, a market development fund supported by all U.S. beef producers and importers who sell cattle or beef products.

The recent USDA Cattle Inventory report showed the beef cow herd in
Washington dropped 16 percent in the past year. Washington Cattlemen’s Association President Dick Coon says there can be many reasons behind the decline.

Coon: “We are faced with a continuing litany of pressure from regulators, more taxes. Input costs have dramatically gone up the past couple of years. Prices have softened a little bit with the economy being so slow. People don‘t want to go out to a white table cloth restaurant and have a steak. They are going to have a hamburger instead. So all those pressures are accumulating.”

Ranchers are getting older too. Coon says at 57 he’s still one of the youngest guys at the meetings. And economic opportunities elsewhere are taking the kids off the farm and ranch.

I’m Bob Hoff and that’s Washington Ag Today on the Northwest Ag Information Network.