Time To Come Together, Work Together

Dear Fellow Beef Producers,  

It’s time to get fired up for the 2009 Cattle Industry Summer Conference, which is on tap for July 14-18 in beautiful Denver, Colorado! It means so much to the industry that so many of you volunteer your time to attend this midyear conference and continue identifying ways to improve the demand for beef. In this age of quick and constant change, it is so important that we meet like this twice a year to make sure we work together to focus our limited checkoff resources on those programs which address our goals and have the best chance for improving profitability for producers and importers of all types of beef – be it from dairy or beef animals, conventional, grass-fed, or natural.  

That’s where the beef checkoff comes in. Particularly in these times of economic challenge that we are all facing, I think we are fortunate to have a national self-help program that provides us with the resources we need to promote and improve our end product. That said, our checkoff budgetary challenges have been severe in recent years, with the recommended budget for Fiscal Year 2010 more than 22 percent below that of just three years ago.  

More now than ever, we will be asked to think about the effectiveness of programs in meeting our goals while we consider checkoff program proposals for FY2010 during summer conference. We’re clearly faced with making tough decisions about effective programs that we can no longer afford to fund.  

So as you attend your many meetings in Denver, or send comments from afar, ask the tough questions. Let’s make sure we are focusing our scarce resources on those programs that will make the most out of our checkoff dollars. Working together, we can continue to make the beef checkoff beneficial to the producers and importers who invest their hard-earned dollars in those programs. I am honored to be working with you all toward that end. 

Sincerely,

Lucinda Williams
2009 Chairman, Cattlemen’s Beef Board
Hatfield, Massachusetts