State Beef Councils Pivotal to Beef Industry's Success

Pacific Northwest cattle producers are fortunate to have three talented and dedicated state Beef Councils or Commissions working on their behalf.
NCBA’s Executive Vice President Emeritus John Huston says that without the state council’s efforts much of what has happened nationally would not have taken place. And the national partnership created in 1963 to meet on-the-ground needs proved to be valuable through the years.

Huston: “No one was reaching out to help the states. So they had to pretty much have to build their own program internally. There wasn’t a state-national kind of operation, so I think the most important thing that we have learned that we’ve got build the teamwork and build the state-national efforts - we can’t break up and start going it alone.”

Huston says efforts to create a nationally mandated checkoff program went through fits and starts over the years - and the one that finally passed in 1985 was very different from the ones first proposed to U.S. beef producers.
Huston:”They were very different structures but they were developed top down. Then we started surveying the industry and found out the kind of structure cattlemen really wanted -- bottom up. So I think as we make enhancements to the checkoff we need to keep that lesson in mind -- it needs to be bottom up.”
There has been discussion throughout the beef industry about increasing the dollar checkoff. Huston says it is important to listen to industry and discover what they want and what they will support then formulate a plan and communicate it.