Long-range planning, CBB unanimously passes strategy

Denver, Colo. – The beef industry long-range plan was passed unanimously by both the Cattlemen’s Beef Boards (CBB) and the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association (NCBA) on Feb. 5. Both the NCBA and CBB will now start examining how to appropriately develop tactics to fit the plan’s objectives.
“This is a long range plan, and it doesn’t have all the answers. A lot of fleshing out has to be developed from what’s on that one-page sheet,” commented Long Range Plan Task Force Committee Co-chair Charles Miller during the CBB update session on Feb. 3.
“A lot of the tactics need to be developed, and will be developed by the various groups working in specific areas of this long-range plan. The task force did consider two very critical factors in the success of this, or any other, long-range plan that this industry needs to embrace.
“One of those factors is the development of a resource plan to achieve the desired outcomes of the beef industry’s long-range plan. What this long-range plan will take to fully implement in the various segments and components is money. We know it will take money, and from the checkoff standpoint we also know how tight the checkoff budgets are. We are stretched as thin as we can be stretched.
“The policy groups that are part of this long-range plan will have to take a very long, serious and hard look at combining their efforts to move forward with an initiative to address enhancing the checkoff program. The checkoff program will need more funds. A dollar in 1987, as we all know, will not buy today nearly what it bought then. So, this is an area that has to be looked at, and it has to be looked at from the policy side,” explained Miller.
He added that many of those policy organizations were present and in agreement to meet and talk about the issue.
Another component of funding programs that Miller mentioned was the utilization of non-checkoff resources.
“There was much discussion from members of the industry chain that are not paying into the checkoff, but are benefitting from the use of our product all the way through the line. I’m talking about the wholesale and retail, and many of the restaurant organizations. There was an open discussion about the fact that they can contribute back into the system. Those monies would not come from the checkoff side, but would be contributory for funding many of these projects and activities because, again, it will benefit them as well,” noted Miller.
The second area discussed at great length by the task force was the adoption of a practical and effective industry-wide animal disease traceability program.
“This is a very sensitive subject, and it was treated as such. A serious look at a viable and practical traceability program and system needs to be looked at because it can go a long way toward enhancing the integrity of our product and our industry,” said Miller.
“Just as an example, we talked about if we had an animal disease outbreak – one of the dreaded diseases we don’t even want to talk about. What would it do to our industry as a whole, currently? Whereas, if we have traceback, at least we have the opportunity, and hopefully the ability, to keep it limited to a specific target area and address it quickly. It’s the rifle approach as compared to the shotgun approach, and this is something the task force felt very seriously about,” noted Miller.
“Both of these components are considered to be critical to the success of this, or any, long range plan. So, it was the unanimous agreement that these needed to be a part of the system,” concluded Miller.
For more information on the long-range plan, contact the Cattlemen’s Beef Board at 303-220-9890. Heather Hamilton is editor of the Wyoming Livestock Roundup and can be reached at heather@wylr.net.