FY2010 Checkoff Plan of Work

It took plenty of debate over two long days, but the Operating Committee this week approved proposals for 30 checkoff programs to be funded with a $42.3 million Cattlemen’s Beef Board budget in Fiscal Year 2010, which begins Oct. 1, 2009.

Revenue from checkoff assessments for the current year has come in a little higher than expected during the last several months, and the Beef Board spent $120,000 less in administration than it had budgeted for the year. That combined for a $695,000 addition to the program budget allocated this week – up from the $41.7 million budget the Beef Board approved in July.

Recognizing the importance of issues-management programs to counter misinformation about farmers and ranchers, beef, and the beef industry in the media, Operating Committee members increased the budget in that area by a total of $100,000, and also increased funding in the area of retail marketing by the same, based on the abillity to use that venue to help channel sales of middle meats. Another beneficiary of that increase was the National Beef Ambassador Program, which many of you will remember was not funded by the national checkoff program in the current year. On Wednesday, the Operating Committee approved funding that program at $70,000 for FY2010.

Contractors who successfully submitted proposals for checkoff funding in the coming year include the American National CattleWomen, the Cattlemen’s Beef Board, the Meat Importers Council of America, the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association, and the U.S. Meat Export Federation.

An overview of funding, by budget component, is as follows:
– $18.5 million for promotion, including advertising, retail and foodservice marketing, the National Beef Cook-Off, and veal marketing and communications.
– $6.2 million for research projects in the areas of beef safety, product enhancement, human nutrition, and market research.
– More than $4.8 million for consumer and nutrition-influencer public relations.
– About $3 million for indutry information projects, such as the National Beef Ambassador Program, beef and dairy-beef quality assurance programs, and issues management.
– Nearly $5.3 million for foreign marketing of U.S. beef around the globe.
– $1.8 million for producer communications, including paid media, direct communications with producers, beef and dairy earned media, communications through livestock markets, and an annual producer attitude survey.
– In addition to those program costs, the FY2010 Beef Board budget also allocates $220,000 for evaluation of checkoff programs; $130,000 for program development; $255,000 for USDA oversight; and $2.1 million for administration, which includes costs for all Board and committee meetings, as well as office rental, supplies and equipment, and salaries.

In addition to the Beef Board’s $42.3 million national budget, the Federation of State Beef Councils has allocated a separate $4.7 million to put toward national checkoff programs.

So the stage is set for another year of checkoff programming, though programs authorized by the Operating Committee still must be approved by USDA before any money can be spent.

Voting Begins

It’s been an exciting morning. Good discussion, great questions. Here are a few highlights from today’s Operating Committee voting:

The Executive Committee will now meet. Watch for complete 2010 budget information in future posts.

Discussions Resume

It’s a brand new day and the Operating Committee is revived, ready to delve in to another morning of discussion. Tensions are a little on the high side as budget concerns are weighing heavily on everyone’s minds.

Right now, there has been more money requested for checkoff programs than the budget allows for. The Committee will have to decide which programs will best help drive beef demand AND put money back in the producer’s pocket.

The Committee started out the day discussing the Northeast retail and foodservice marketing proposals and beef safety research. They will spend the next few hours discussing the other requests for funding that were “set aside” and then dive into the budgets attached to each program request.

Initially Approved

The Operating Committee has approved 17 requests for funding. Keep in mind, those requests for funding can be set aside for further discussion tomorrow. The Committee will revisit the remaining 20 funding requests, debate them, discuss them, and vote on them.

Promotion Update

The afternoon presentations concluded with reports from the checkoff’s Promotion program area.

Here are some highlights and suggestions for proposed 2010 funding:

The presentations from each program area are officially over.

The Operating Committee also received an evaluation update from Dave Bateman and will now move on to action on the 2010 requests for funding.

Mid-Way Point

The day is dwindling on and with so many great programs, it’s going to be a tough task to decide which ones merit checkoff funding for Fiscal Year 2010. The committee has now moved on to hear from the checkoff’s primary contractor, the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association. First up, the Research and Industry Information program areas.

Here are a few highlights from the Research presentations:
- More emphasis will be placed on the checkoff’s involvement with and relationships within BIFSCo (Beef Industry Food Safety Council) and opportunities to host regional meetings to present key findings from the Beef Industry Safety Summit.
- The National Beef Tenderness Survey is slated to be conducted in 2010. It’s the industry tenderness “report card” at foodservice and retail.
- Fund research aimed at associating beef with a healthy lifestyle, then distribute that knowledge to the nutrition researcher community.
- Provide ongoing tracking of consumer attitudes and usage of beef as well as the Consumer Beef Index.

Note: these programs/tactics will commence only if the request for funding is approved by the committee.

Here are a few highlights from the Industry Information presentations:
- Create a national BQA cow/calf -stocker-seedstock producers manual
- Crisis Planning: Maintain critical relationships to help facilitate an immediate, consistent industry response to an FMD outbreak or other crisis scenario.

Still to come this afternoon: public relations, consumer advertising, foodservice and retail marketing and new products. Stay tuned!

Ahead Of Schedule

Reporting from the Operating Committee and happy to say the group is ahead of schedule. You can see the wheels turning as committee members mull through pages of great funding requests, all-the-while, knowing that budgets are slightly down and they have a daunting task ahead of them to choose which programs to fund for 2010 in an effort to judiciously spend producer checkoff investments in areas where it can have the most impact on beef demand.

As you may remember, last year, cuts in program budgets were spread across various categories to minimize the overall effect of the budget reduction. Some deeper cuts were required, however, with the hardest hits in funding for producer communications, including the Beefmobile; youth education; and the Beef Ambassador Program.

The Beef Ambassador Program has once again come to the table with a request for funding; the National Beef Cook-Off has requested funding for 2009 post-event promotion and 2011 event planning (location to be determined); and, MICA has proposed funding for northeast and North Virginia public relations, retail marketing and foodservice programs.

As a reminder, the job of the Operating Committee is to listen to each program presentation and ask questions for clarification — the debate, discussion and voting will come later.

Off To A Good Start

The Operating Committee is off to a good start with Lynn Heinze presenting the Producer Communications program area request for funding and Thad Lively presenting all areas of the Foreign Marketing program area. The schedule and procedures allow for the committee to unanimously approve the funding as submitted or “set them aside” for further discussion later today. Up next on the schedule will be the National Beef Ambassador Program and National Beef Cook-Off, followed by the three program areas managed by the Meat Importers Council of America (MICA).

Operating Committee Convenes

This morning, the Beef Promotion Operating Committee convened in Denver, Colo., to hear presentations from each checkoff program area about 2010 funding requests. The meeting opened with an invocation from past Cattlemen’s Beef Board chairman Dave Bateman. The committee has a long day ahead of them, many tough decisions to be made, and budgets are tight with more than 35 program areas presenting over the next day and a half.

Here’s the meeting agenda for the week.

Stay tuned to the blog for updates from the meeting.

Operating Committee To Decide On Checkoff Programs

Another checkoff fiscal year is just around the bend, so we’ve got a lot of work to get done here in the next couple of weeks, particularly those producers who serve on the Beef Promotion Operating Committee or the CBB Executive Committee. On Sept. 15-16, the Operating Committee will meet in Denver to review and approve Authorization Requests (ARs) to fund program activities with national checkoff dollars in Fiscal Year 2010, which begins Oct. 1, 2009. Members of the Executive Committee will observe this meeting and then follow immediately with an Executive Committee meeting on the afternoon of Sept. 16.

We will have some good news and some bad news to discuss at the Operating Committee meeting. The good news is that actual revenues for the current year should come in a bit higher than our revised projections, and revenues for the coming year are still expected to be on target. The bad news is that our CBB budget for 2010 is nearly 22 percent below our budget of Fiscal Year 2007. The Operating Committee will have its work cut out for it to ensure we maintain a strong, diversified program of promotion, research and information.

This year, we will receive presentations from contractors of 37 ARs with requested CBB funding of more than $40.3 million, which is $1.4 million more than the available budget at this time. We will have some additional funds available as a result of surplus revenues for 2009 and unspent administration expenses, but we’ll still have a lot of tough decisions to make. 

Links to the agendas for the Operating and Executive committee meetings are below, and please come back to this site during and after the meetings, as we’ll be posting reports from the meetings right here.

Tom Jones
CBB Secretary/Treasurer
Pottsville, AR

• Sept. 15-16 Beef Promotion Operating Committee MEETING AGENDA
• Sept. 16 CBB Executive Committee MEETING AGENDA