News

Proponents of a MO State beef checkoff says it’s worth it

A lot of concerns have been raised by cattle producers and others opposed to a Missouri state beef checkoff but the proponents say there is much benefit to an additional $1 dollar per head checkoff at the state level.

Keith Stevens, president of the Missouri Cattlemen’s Association and a cow-calf producer in southwest Missouri, says a state checkoff will add another dollar for research, education and promotion, on top of the $1 in the National Beef Checkoff (50 cents of that national checkoff comes back to Missouri).

Stevens tells Brownfield Ag News, “You know, currently, they figure that our checkoff dollar is returning about $11.20 in return, in actual value to the producer. So, I can see an additional dollar doubling that reach for us as producers.” He says the state checkoff, which would be fully refundable, would be used to promote Missouri beef.

Missouri Farmers Union president Richard Oswald says beef checkoff programs promote “generic beef” and says improper labeling of beef from foreign sources could occur, especially without Country of Origin Labeling (COOL) in place.

Mike Deering, executive director of the Missouri Cattlemen’s Association, says that’s nonsense, “I’m not even going to address that because it is totally out there. And, that is insinuating that there are dishonest, deceitful processors in the state and I would not concur with that. I think we have good people in the state. But at the same time if that was to happen there are certainly laws in place to deal with that because that is illegal.”

This Friday, March 4th, is the deadline for producers to register for the Missouri beef checkoff referendum. Voting ballots will be mailed April 4th and must be returned by April 15th. Deering says, so far, about 4,000 out of more than 50-thousand cattle producers in Missouri have registered with the Missouri Ag Department for the referendum.