Creation and implementation of the Beef Promotion and Research Act of 1985 followed two unsuccessful attempts in the 1970s and 1980s to create a mandatory national beef checkoff. Research preceding the 1985 Act determined that producers wanted a checkoff that was fair, easy to administer, maximized grassroots and state level involvement, and that didn’t create additional bureaucracies.
The 1985 Act achieves those objectives by making state beef councils a key component in the national Beef Checkoff Program. It gives them input into national programs and allows them to keep 50 cents of every dollar collected. Under that Act, half of producers elected to the national Beef Promotion Operating Committee, the body which contracts for the implementation of checkoff programs, is “elected by a federation that includes as members the Qualified State Beef Councils.”
By contrast, the 1996 Act gives significantly more power to the Federal Government through the Secretary of Agriculture and fails to assure success factors written into the 1985 Act. Specifically, it:
• Gives the Secretary the power to establish the size of the Cattlemen’s Beef Board. (1985: The
size is established by a formula written into the Act.)
• Gives the Secretary the power to appoint non-producer/non-importer “public” members to the
Cattlemen’s Beef Board. (1985: Power is not given.) This could include members of PETA,
HSUS and CSPI.
- See more at: http://www.beefusa.org/beefcheckoffacts.aspx#sthash.FKCaHam8.dpuf