Nominations to the Beef Board
Did you know that the volunteer board members responsible for making decisions about your checkoff dollars at both the state and national levels are checkoff-paying, beef farmers, ranchers and importers? This structure is designed to ensure that producers like you are responsible for directing, reviewing and approving expenditure of all checkoff dollars.
If you are interested in throwing your hat into the ring to be one of the 99 members of the Cattlemen’s Beef Board (CBB), then share your interest with a certified nominating organization to learn about being nominated for consideration by the U.S. Secretary of Agriculture to serve a three-year term. Nominating organizations represent beef and dairy producers in 37 states and three regions, based on total cattle numbers in each state. Importer appointments are drawn from nominations by importer associations.
“Serving on the Beef Board gives me the opportunity to have a voice – real input – in how our checkoff monies are invested,” explains CBB member Amelia Kent, Louisiana cow-calf producer.
“Given consumer concern about the safety of our food supply, it is critical for farmers and ranchers to tell our stories and interact with the consumer audience. If we don’t, someone else will tell our stories for us, and those stories could be laced with misinformation or their own agendas. It’s simply damaging to our industry and our product for us not to step up.”
“Serving on the Board provides a better understanding of how our checkoff monies are invested, insight to the results of those promotional efforts and the opportunity to shape further investments with the ambition of increasing beef demand,” said Kent.
New members joining the CBB will begin their three-year term in February 2019. View new and reappointed members here.
The Beef Checkoff program was established as part of the 1985 Farm Bill. The checkoff assesses $1 per head on the sale of live domestic and imported cattle, in addition to a comparable assessment on imported beef and beef products. States may retain up to 50 cents on the dollar and forward the other 50 cents per head to the Cattlemen’s Beef Promotion and Research Board, which administers the national checkoff program, subject to USDA approval.
