At the Cattle Industry Summer Business meeting in San Diego, California, Senior Farm and Ranch Broadcaster Ron Hays had the chance to talk with National Cattlemen’s Beef Association CEO Colin Woodall. In addition to his role in guiding NCBA’s policies, Woodall also oversees the organization that is the largest single contractor for the $1 per head Beef Checkoff. The two men talked about what the Beef Checkoff Program has done for producers which can no longer be discussed without mention of the Return On Investment study completed by Dr. Harry Kaiser of Cornell University.
Our coverage from the 2023 Cattle Industry Summer Business Meeting in San Diego is being powered by Farm Data Services of Stillwater.
Woodall said that producers should be asking what their dollar per head is being used for and what it is doing for them. “Dr. Kaiser’s work is well known. He spends a lot of effort analyzing this and looking at what it means for the producer – not the packer – the producer. This number of $13.41 in value being returned per every single checkoff dollar being invested is huge! We know that is accurate. We can look at a lot of the work that NCBA does as a contractor for the National Beef Checkoff.”
He emphasized the importance of knowing that NCBA isn’t the checkoff, only a contractor that has to compete for the contract to do the work which includes promoting beef and moving as much product as possible through such programs as eCommerce and through advertising with the slogan “Beef. It’s What’s For Dinner.”
“We know that with a lot of the investment we make for banner ads and partnerships with retailers, every dollar that we invest in some of this advertising, we can get anywhere from thirty to ninety dollars in beef sold,” Woodall said. “So, we know that Dr. Kaiser’s number is spot on just given the results that we have seen in the work that we have done as a contractor over time.”
For those who think their investments aren’t being used correctly, Woodall says that they haven’t engaged with the programs enough to find out for themselves. “There aren’t any secrets with the checkoff. Everything is public. Whether you see it in the work we do as a contractor or if you find it by going to the Cattleman’s Beef Board’s website where all of this is opened up. There are no secrets and there is a very firm firewall written in statute that ensures that no checkoff money is used in the work that NCBA does on our policy division side, and we have to account for that – not only with the Cattleman’s Beef Board, but also with the USDA.
“For example, I have to keep track of every fifteen minutes of my time every day in order to make sure that we are spending these dollars right. Not only do we have our internal accounting department that is always auditing what we do, but our records, expense reports, timekeeping, and invoices, – all of that is audited by the Cattleman’s Beef Board, which is the Checkoff, and the United States Department of Agriculture. So we feel very comfortable that we are always going to be adhering to the letter of the law ensuring that those checkoff dollars are used for promotion and research only.”
Woodall feels that their contract with the Beef Checkoff is worthwhile to the NCBA. He said, “We see the great work that the Beef Checkoff does whether it is the iconic Beef. It’s What’s for Dinner commercials, or the Issues Management/Public Relations work that we do. When you look at this past Spring and bird flu and all the consternation that brought to not only the dairy industry, but the beef industry, and everybody else, it was that checkoff-funded Issues Management team that was really at the forefront to ensure that the messaging was correct and we were protecting the consumer perception of beef, and because of that, we did not see any decrease in demand. Even when they started testing beef, consumers stuck with us because we were able to get the information out there to them.”
Woodall added that one of the fundamental tenets of the Checkoff is research, which includes food safety and new product development. “All of these things are making this industry better,” he said. “All of these things are giving producers opportunities to be profitable and keeping demand high, so yes, it is absolutely worth it to go through the hoops to make that we can do great work with these checkoff dollars.”
Today’s report is a part of an extensive discussion that Hays had with Woodall at the Summer Cattle Industry Summer Business meeting- click here to jump to the Ag Perspectives Podcast where you can listen to the entire conversation
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