07/11/06 Cattle industry summer conference

American Rancher July 11, 2006 The Annual Cattle Industry Summer Conference is underway in Reno, Nevada, this week. The event includes meetings of five national beef organizations. According to Jay O'Brian, a Texas producer and chairman of the Cattlemen's Beef Board, it's a time when checkoff committees gather to lay the groundwork to achieve common goals in 2007. O'Brian: "The summer meeting is really the key time the committees really format where we are going. As you know half our members come from the state beef councils, half from the Beef Board, and we work together so we can speak with one voice and we can all build demand together." Joint industry committees will consider 2007 funding for the checkoff program, which turns 20 on October 1st. O'Brian: "This is our 20th year anniversary so we really are excited about getting together. We have had a great upswing in demand since 1998. We are having a few blips now and so we have our work cut out for us and the committees will work hard to spend our dollars wisely." O'Brian says committees will work hard to continue funding strategies and far-sighted checkoff programs in research, information and promotion. In addition to the Cattlemen's Beef Promotion and Research Board, the summer conference includes meetings of the National Cattlemen's Beef Association, the American National CattleWomen and Cattle-Fax. I'm Bob Hoff.