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By Colleen Schreiber VICTORIA, Texas — The fate of the national beef checkoff is in the hands of the U.S. Supreme Court, which has yet to decide whether or not to hear an appeal of a circuit court ruling that the mandatory $1 per head levy is unconstitutional. It likely will be some time before the high court even decides whether or not to hear the case, and checkoff collections continue in the interim. Texas cattle producers, however, are getting prepared at home for whatever the outcome. Last month the Texas Legislature amended the state’s Agriculture Code to include cattle in the category of "agricultural commodity" and to allow a new Texas "Beef Marketing, Education, Research and Promotion" program. The changes allow Texas beef producers to petition the Texas Department of Agriculture for a referendum on a state beef checkoff program. Texas and Southwestern Cattle Raisers attorney Ed Small was instrumental in getting the amendment attached to HB 7, the government reorganization bill, in the legislature’s third special session. He talked those attending the recent TSCRA fall board meeting here through that process. "In Texas we have a constitutional provision that says you can have a commodity program for marketing, but it has to be one that allows for a rebate. So we already had a commodity statute based on that constitutional provision, but years ago, when we started the federal program, we took the word ‘beef’ out of that statute. That’s why we had to go back in and change it," Small explained. Assuming producers approve, the Texas Department of Agriculture will have oversight, but the program itself will be carried out by the Texas Beef Council’s 21-member board of directors. The directors, who will serve one-year terms, will be appointed by the commissioner of agriculture. The legislation calls for three board members from Texas and Southwestern Cattle Raisers Association, three from the Texas Cattle Feeders Association, three from the Texas Farm Bureau, two from the Independent Cattlemen’s Association, two from the Texas purebred cattle industry, two from the Texas dairy industry, two from the Livestock Marketing Association of Texas, one representative of meat packer and exporter associations, one representative from Texas CattleWomen, and two at-large directors. Only a cattle producer who has owned cattle in the last 12 months before the date of the referendum is eligible to vote in the referendum. An eligible producer may only vote once in the referendum, and each producer’s vote is entitled to equal weight regardless of the producer’s volume of production. The referendum requires a simple majority for passage, and the Texas Beef Council will pay for all expenses incurred in conducting the referendum. The rules, Small said, should be available soon. Jay Truitt, legislative affairs spokesperson for the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association, talked briefly as well about the federal checkoff program. "Those who want the checkoff to go away are touting the recent ruling as the final victory," Truitt said. "It’s really not over until the final chapter is written. "We’ll play this out to the very end, and if it goes south on us, we’re going to do something else. That’s something I hope everyone understands. We’re going to promote beef in the United States and around the world. We may not do it exactly the way we do it today, but we’re going to promote beef, period," he stressed. Another hot topic during the meeting was USDA’s release days before of its proposed rules for the mandatory country of original labeling law. "NCBA supports COOL as a practice," Truitt told cattle raisers, "but we don’t support the way this particular law has been mandated. "We expected that the mandatory law would not look much different than the voluntary standards. The cost is estimated to be about $3.9 billion for the first year alone, and about half a billion to a billion of those costs are directly associated with beef. "This law doesn’t help us with our relationship with Mexico, it doesn’t help us actually sell more product out of this country, and it doesn’t convince consumers that they need to be eat more beef," he insisted. "I would expect that before Congress goes home there will be some action taken. My best guess is that beef and pork don’t fit into the future of mandatory country of origin labeling. That’s the position we’ve lobbied." Dale Moore, USDA chief of staff, added a few more comments about COOL. "One of the strongest statements short of veto that I’ve seen in one of the presidential messages to the Hill had to do with country of origin labeling," Moore said. "The presidential message that I saw said, ‘We strongly oppose.’ It wasn’t ‘We oppose.’ It was ‘We strongly oppose.’ He stopped just short of that veto threat. "We lost on that policy discussion, so USDA said they were going to implement this law the way Congress provided. In 13 years that I’ve been on the Hill, there are few provisions written in agricultural law that are more prescriptive than the COOL issue," Moore told listeners. "It not only tells the Secretary what she is going to do, but how she is going to do it. It also tells the Secretary what she cannot do in terms of providing information, providing data." Moore said he expects Rep. Henry Bonilla’s language denying funding for COOL implementation to remain in the ag appropriations bill. On bovine spongiform encephalopathy, or "mad cow" disease, Moore said USDA has been pleased with the work the Canadians have done to get the problem under control. USDA, he added, is moving forward on reopening the border to live cattle, but he assured listeners that they will be going through an "analytical, regulatory, step by step process." Reopening of the border to live exports, he added, will likely force the U.S. back to the discussion table with Japan with regard to exports. The Japanese are only willing to accept beef from Canada if they agree to test every animal for BSE. Furthermore, to ensure that exports from the U.S. come strictly from the U.S. and not Canada, the Japanese want all U.S. beef identified with a country of origin label. USDA came up with a voluntary program that for the time being has satisfied the Japanese government. Those packer/processors who wish to export product to Japan must make application to the Beef Export Verification program. Essentially, the packers are guaranteeing that the beef they ship to Japan comes from cattle that were slaughtered in their plants. "They’re able to make that certification because we’re currently not importing any cattle from Canada," Moore explained. "When the border reopens, we’ll have to take another look." Some 169 companies have made application to the program, he noted, and roughly 150 have been approved to export product to Japan. |
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