03/07/06 Beef checkoff lawsuit leads to survey

The US Supreme Court says the Beef Checkoff is a government speech program and it does not violate farmers' First Amendment Rights. The Livestock Marketing Association originally took the checkoff question to court in an attempt to get a producer referendum. MCBRIDE "And of course, this is the largest single survey on producer attitudes that's ever been done." That's LMA's John McBride. The lawsuit has been settled. He says LMA wanted a referendum but will happily take a survey of eight thousand producers. MCBRIDE "And I know we'll be including a question for those that take the survey on 'how do you feel about a periodic referendum?' because we still believe that producers do deserve the right to vote on a program every few years." The Cattlemen's Beef Board applauds the agreement which chairman Jay O'Brien says will be a gauge of producer feelings about the checkoff. The survey won't happen overnight says McBride. MCBRIDE "When you've got so many groups talking about improving the checkoff and taking a second look at what was needed first of all was to have the broadest kind of survey we could get. That's why we included it in the settlement." Under terms of the settlement the producer survey will be checkoff funded. The questions will be developed with input from LMA, the Cattlemen's Beef Board, Federation of State Beef Councils and USDA. Today's Idaho Ag News Bill Scott