A
Anonymous
Guest
R-CALF founder voices opinions on current directors and new association
By Leo McDonnell
R-CALF Founder and Past President
Ag News at a Glance
April 6, 2007
I"ve had a lot of phone calls and e-mails about what"s going on the last couple months with R-CALF. I"d say they are acting about like any organization or political group of this size with the complex-ity of issues and membership they have. There will always be internal conflicts; so be it. It"s no more unique to R-CALF than any other group or organization. One thing I know is the membership issues re-main the same.
R-CALF USA is not about one person or one issue; it"s about having a national voice for the ranching sector of the beef/cattle industry. If the or-ganization, staff, and leader-ship are worth a hill of beans, they"ll survive. I"m not going to use this opportunity to ex-plain or criticize the change in R-CALF. About a year ago we got a new group of directors, and they wanted to run things a different way. They wanted the reins, and they have "em. These kind of changes take place from corporate America to our local church groups.
What I do know is that when they became directors a year ago, we had 18,000 vol-untary members, making R-CALF the largest voluntary membership of any national cattlemen"s group. Our fi-nances showed a half million in the bank, we had a national office in Billings, field staff in the country, a D.C. office and a very respected trade firm on retainer in D.C. along with a D.C. agriculture specialist group, and they all worked for U.S. ranchers every day. We also had a network of volun-teers that was unmatched in the history of this industry that were committed to the growth of R-CALF and even more to addressing the core issues for ranchers.
In 1998, R-CALF was formed with no members and a million dollars of depth, and we have come along way since then. The last several years have been spent positioning the U.S. ranchers to start be-coming winners by building relationships with folks in D.C., building networks of groups and economists that believe in enhancing trade policy and competitive mar-kets, and seeking likeminded individuals and cattle groups that realize the importance of U.S. ranchers (the largest seg-ment of the cattle/beef com-plex) having a unified national voice that focuses and is driven by U.S. ranchers, much like the other downstream seg-ments of the beef industry that have their own national or-ganization. Today, U.S. ranch-ers have the greatest opportu-nity to succeed on multiple issues, and the table has been well set.
When COOL was signed into law, I said the easy part was over and it would take another 4-5 years to get it im-plemented. Well, considerable time and membership funds from R-CALF have been used to build a platform that is well respected by our policy makers in Washington, D.C. This year we have a tremendous opportunity to move mandatory Country of Origin Labeling forward, with both the Senate and House agriculture chair-men saying it is time to imple-ment COOL. Only U.S. ranch-ers are going to get that done in a meaningful way. On the other side, within the last year you have Tyson, Cargill, NCBA, and Farm Bureau join-ing together to hire a D.C. lobbying firm to oppose COOL. They also want to exclude hamburger and im-ported feeder cattle, which would be a majority of our imported beef and cattle.
In 2002, we also got a piece of legislation passed requiring that special rules and safeguards be in all future trade agreements for cattle and beef . In the Australian FTA, for the first time, we received a long phase out on quotas and a price mechanism that curbs imports when beef prices drop below break-even. We haven"t had the same success with CAFTA, Peru, or the Colum-bia FTA because, as the U.S. Trade Representative"s office recently noted, NCBA does not support such risk manage-ment tools for U.S. cattle pro-ducers. But this new Congress has stated several times they are fed up with these extremist type FTAs that give America away and that it is time we start putting America first. U.S. ranchers again have a great opportunity the next few years to start making trade enhancing instead of the de-structionist manner we have seen.
We have also seen a re-newed interest in a packer ban on feeding and returning to a more open, transparent com-petitive market that improves demand transparencies for U.S. cattle. It is being led by Senator Grassley, Thomas, Enzi, Johnson, and others in a bi-partisan way. The upcom-ing Farm Bill offers U.S. ranchers a real opportunity to address these competition is-sues and to start rebuilding and improving demand trans-parencies for our cattle, but others, as we know, would rather chickenize this industry with these socialized highly integrated production models.
U.S. ranchers in the New Farm Bill also have the oppor-tunity to take back control of the checkoff, but you"re going to need to be organized and willing to play the game if you want to get anything meaning-ful done. There is something morally and ethically wrong when the primary contracting agent who makes millions of dollars off such a government mandated funding program is also repeatedly lobbying against the very producers required to fund it. Ranchers have a tremendous opportu-nity to take this program back and put it in the hands of those who fund it and work on in-creasing demand not just for commodity beef, but for U.S. cattle.
Also, USDA would not have been held at bay for nearly two years (through late 2003 and into mid 2005) in allowing Under Thirty Month cattle and still be held at bay from allowing in Over Thirty Month cattle and beef, if it were not for R-CALF. The United States markets and consumers should not be a dumping ground for food products and live animals that a majority of our international markets have banned. We all expect USDA to operate on higher standards, not the low-est standards, of science and food safety. Along with lack of COOL, it also lacks of proper safeguards in trade agreements, tilts the trading field farther away from U.S. ranchers instead of "leveling the playing field," and puts the weight of Canada"s problem squarely on the backs of U.S. ranchers and consumers.
Were it not for R-CALF, the mandatory National ID would be fast on its way, but R-CALF stepped in, stopping NCBA from allowing a pri-vate consortium, many of which were anti-U.S. cattle producer groups, from collect-ing the data. Had NCBA been successful, they would have created another mandated gov-ernment cash cow for them-selves while taking the burden of funding and addressing competition problems away from USDA and putting it squarely on the shoulders of U.S. ranchers. These actions would have also commodi-tized many of our value based source and age verification programs in time with this socialized scheme, along with "fast tracking" integration.
R-CALF is a membership driven organization with new directors representing their interests. We all understand that there are many ways to do a job and accomplish the same thing at the end of the day. The futures of our businesses are dependent on the successes of these issues being made the next few years. We have all invested a lot of time, money and energy building the plat-forms for these various issues and positioning U.S. ranchers to have them addressed.
I did not agree with some of the new directors" decision to remove Chuck Kiker as President of R-CALF. Chuck"s not afraid of taking a tough stand and had been with R-CALF since the trade cases were filed.
He was there when others weren"t. He dedicated a lot of time to help build and guide the development of R-CALF into the largest voluntary member-ship national cattle organiza-tion in the U.S. This last year he had positioned R-CALF to make some great strides in D.C., and that"s where the game is played.
Let"s hope this new board and staff understands the tre-mendous responsibility to U.S. ranchers they have taken on with this new approach to ad-dressing the issues and struc-ture. Let"s hope they under-stand the importance of build-ing relationships, maintaining membership, and fighting the good fight with the ranchers always being the main concern.
I say give them a chance—to much is at stake. Stay in there with your membership, hold them accountable, and help them get back to work on the issues this organization was founded on and the folks in the country have entrusted them with.
I have not dropped my membership, and I don"t plan to. Why would I at a time when as ranchers we have this many opportunities?
At the same time, some of those who have left R-CALF are starting a new group, the United States Cattlemen"s As-sociation. Some have said we don"t need another organiza-tion. I believe this industry could use all the squeaky wheels we can get, and what"s wrong with the largest segment of the U.S. cattle/beef segment having two organizations? I joined them also, and there are good, dedicated people in both groups. Let"s all hope they stayed focused on the issues, because there is a lot at stake.
Source: Ag News at a Glance
By Leo McDonnell
R-CALF Founder and Past President
Ag News at a Glance
April 6, 2007
I"ve had a lot of phone calls and e-mails about what"s going on the last couple months with R-CALF. I"d say they are acting about like any organization or political group of this size with the complex-ity of issues and membership they have. There will always be internal conflicts; so be it. It"s no more unique to R-CALF than any other group or organization. One thing I know is the membership issues re-main the same.
R-CALF USA is not about one person or one issue; it"s about having a national voice for the ranching sector of the beef/cattle industry. If the or-ganization, staff, and leader-ship are worth a hill of beans, they"ll survive. I"m not going to use this opportunity to ex-plain or criticize the change in R-CALF. About a year ago we got a new group of directors, and they wanted to run things a different way. They wanted the reins, and they have "em. These kind of changes take place from corporate America to our local church groups.
What I do know is that when they became directors a year ago, we had 18,000 vol-untary members, making R-CALF the largest voluntary membership of any national cattlemen"s group. Our fi-nances showed a half million in the bank, we had a national office in Billings, field staff in the country, a D.C. office and a very respected trade firm on retainer in D.C. along with a D.C. agriculture specialist group, and they all worked for U.S. ranchers every day. We also had a network of volun-teers that was unmatched in the history of this industry that were committed to the growth of R-CALF and even more to addressing the core issues for ranchers.
In 1998, R-CALF was formed with no members and a million dollars of depth, and we have come along way since then. The last several years have been spent positioning the U.S. ranchers to start be-coming winners by building relationships with folks in D.C., building networks of groups and economists that believe in enhancing trade policy and competitive mar-kets, and seeking likeminded individuals and cattle groups that realize the importance of U.S. ranchers (the largest seg-ment of the cattle/beef com-plex) having a unified national voice that focuses and is driven by U.S. ranchers, much like the other downstream seg-ments of the beef industry that have their own national or-ganization. Today, U.S. ranch-ers have the greatest opportu-nity to succeed on multiple issues, and the table has been well set.
When COOL was signed into law, I said the easy part was over and it would take another 4-5 years to get it im-plemented. Well, considerable time and membership funds from R-CALF have been used to build a platform that is well respected by our policy makers in Washington, D.C. This year we have a tremendous opportunity to move mandatory Country of Origin Labeling forward, with both the Senate and House agriculture chair-men saying it is time to imple-ment COOL. Only U.S. ranch-ers are going to get that done in a meaningful way. On the other side, within the last year you have Tyson, Cargill, NCBA, and Farm Bureau join-ing together to hire a D.C. lobbying firm to oppose COOL. They also want to exclude hamburger and im-ported feeder cattle, which would be a majority of our imported beef and cattle.
In 2002, we also got a piece of legislation passed requiring that special rules and safeguards be in all future trade agreements for cattle and beef . In the Australian FTA, for the first time, we received a long phase out on quotas and a price mechanism that curbs imports when beef prices drop below break-even. We haven"t had the same success with CAFTA, Peru, or the Colum-bia FTA because, as the U.S. Trade Representative"s office recently noted, NCBA does not support such risk manage-ment tools for U.S. cattle pro-ducers. But this new Congress has stated several times they are fed up with these extremist type FTAs that give America away and that it is time we start putting America first. U.S. ranchers again have a great opportunity the next few years to start making trade enhancing instead of the de-structionist manner we have seen.
We have also seen a re-newed interest in a packer ban on feeding and returning to a more open, transparent com-petitive market that improves demand transparencies for U.S. cattle. It is being led by Senator Grassley, Thomas, Enzi, Johnson, and others in a bi-partisan way. The upcom-ing Farm Bill offers U.S. ranchers a real opportunity to address these competition is-sues and to start rebuilding and improving demand trans-parencies for our cattle, but others, as we know, would rather chickenize this industry with these socialized highly integrated production models.
U.S. ranchers in the New Farm Bill also have the oppor-tunity to take back control of the checkoff, but you"re going to need to be organized and willing to play the game if you want to get anything meaning-ful done. There is something morally and ethically wrong when the primary contracting agent who makes millions of dollars off such a government mandated funding program is also repeatedly lobbying against the very producers required to fund it. Ranchers have a tremendous opportu-nity to take this program back and put it in the hands of those who fund it and work on in-creasing demand not just for commodity beef, but for U.S. cattle.
Also, USDA would not have been held at bay for nearly two years (through late 2003 and into mid 2005) in allowing Under Thirty Month cattle and still be held at bay from allowing in Over Thirty Month cattle and beef, if it were not for R-CALF. The United States markets and consumers should not be a dumping ground for food products and live animals that a majority of our international markets have banned. We all expect USDA to operate on higher standards, not the low-est standards, of science and food safety. Along with lack of COOL, it also lacks of proper safeguards in trade agreements, tilts the trading field farther away from U.S. ranchers instead of "leveling the playing field," and puts the weight of Canada"s problem squarely on the backs of U.S. ranchers and consumers.
Were it not for R-CALF, the mandatory National ID would be fast on its way, but R-CALF stepped in, stopping NCBA from allowing a pri-vate consortium, many of which were anti-U.S. cattle producer groups, from collect-ing the data. Had NCBA been successful, they would have created another mandated gov-ernment cash cow for them-selves while taking the burden of funding and addressing competition problems away from USDA and putting it squarely on the shoulders of U.S. ranchers. These actions would have also commodi-tized many of our value based source and age verification programs in time with this socialized scheme, along with "fast tracking" integration.
R-CALF is a membership driven organization with new directors representing their interests. We all understand that there are many ways to do a job and accomplish the same thing at the end of the day. The futures of our businesses are dependent on the successes of these issues being made the next few years. We have all invested a lot of time, money and energy building the plat-forms for these various issues and positioning U.S. ranchers to have them addressed.
I did not agree with some of the new directors" decision to remove Chuck Kiker as President of R-CALF. Chuck"s not afraid of taking a tough stand and had been with R-CALF since the trade cases were filed.
He was there when others weren"t. He dedicated a lot of time to help build and guide the development of R-CALF into the largest voluntary member-ship national cattle organiza-tion in the U.S. This last year he had positioned R-CALF to make some great strides in D.C., and that"s where the game is played.
Let"s hope this new board and staff understands the tre-mendous responsibility to U.S. ranchers they have taken on with this new approach to ad-dressing the issues and struc-ture. Let"s hope they under-stand the importance of build-ing relationships, maintaining membership, and fighting the good fight with the ranchers always being the main concern.
I say give them a chance—to much is at stake. Stay in there with your membership, hold them accountable, and help them get back to work on the issues this organization was founded on and the folks in the country have entrusted them with.
I have not dropped my membership, and I don"t plan to. Why would I at a time when as ranchers we have this many opportunities?
At the same time, some of those who have left R-CALF are starting a new group, the United States Cattlemen"s As-sociation. Some have said we don"t need another organiza-tion. I believe this industry could use all the squeaky wheels we can get, and what"s wrong with the largest segment of the U.S. cattle/beef segment having two organizations? I joined them also, and there are good, dedicated people in both groups. Let"s all hope they stayed focused on the issues, because there is a lot at stake.
Source: Ag News at a Glance