NCBA Makes Its Moves With Press Support

[Tex]

Coup d'etat in the Beef Industry: Tom Jones Resigns as Chairman of CBB
beefcheckoff | July 12, 2011 at 12:41 pm | Categories: Uncategorized | URL: http://wp.me/p1BxtA-2C
The post below comes from Parker Wilde and the United Food Policy blog; like everything else posted here it's available in the public domain.
Coup d'etat in the Beef Industry: Tom Jones Resigns as Chairman of Cattlemen's Beef Board
Tom Jones resigned this week as chairman of the Cattlemen's Beef Board (CBB). This follows the resignation of Tom Ramey as CEO two weeks ago.

The CBB oversees the beef checkoff program, which uses the federal government's power of taxation to collect $70 to $80 million in mandatory assessments or taxes each year from beef producers, for use in research and promotion activities such as the advertisements with the slogan, "Beef. It's What's for Dinner."

The real power behind the throne has long been the industry's private-sector trade association, the National Cattlemen's Beef Association (NCBA), which serves as the principal contractor to the CBB, receiving most of the checkoff money, and which simultaneously controls most decision-making for the program. The CBB had tried to re-organize the checkoff program to provide more accountability, but the NCBA opposed these changes.

The industry trade press has mostly been absent from duty. The Rod Smith article for Feedstuffs about the Ramey resignation ignores the multi-million dollar questions about financial management, but spends whole paragraphs on an accusation that Ramey listened in on a conference call to which he was not invited. That seems to me like a trivial matter. Smith's brief today editorializes that Jones "was also caught up in the apparently now-failed maneuvers by the board's executive committee to restructure how beef checkoff programs are approved and funded by trying to pull the Federation of State Beef Councils out of the National Cattlemen's Beef Assn. (NCBA)." I imagine most beef producers must be appalled at the anti-reform spin and will seek their information elsewhere. Won't somebody in the trade press give this story the real investigation it deserves? Or will it all be swept under the rug?

In his resignation letter today, Jones cites family concerns and also writes:

I am so sorry to the members of this Board who truly want what's best for every producer. Keep doing the right thing. Doing what's right is all that matters. Some board members put their allegiance to their chosen association before their oath of obligation to serve all producers who pay the checkoff. This is a dangerous position to take. The checkoff program could benefit from positive change and it is difficult to work for that when your allegiance causes you to wear blinders to the change that is needed. It will also be impossible to defend those attitudes if or when this program is challenged.

I have never in my life seen as much public defamation and misrepresentation as I've seen lately. I know many of you as friends. This kind of behavior is beneath us as people of agriculture. When I see that kind of action, I look for the real purpose behind it. More often than not, that purpose is fear – fear of change, fear of the future. Fear may cause someone to want to hide the true issues, which are often based on the desire for money and power. My resignation from this Board certainly won't solve all of the issues before the Board. You still have a lot of work to do and empty calls for "getting along" won't get you anywhere.

The Agwired coverage mentions Jones' family reasons for resigning, but did not include these two sharp paragraphs. There is extensive coverage of recent events on the independent beefcheckoff blog.
Posted by Parke Wilde at 4:48 PM

 

[nenmrancher]

TEX

NO where in that article does it say that NCBA forced this gentleman to resign. I have read the resignation letter that was sent to the state beef councils and no where in it does it say he his resigning because of the mess with NCBA or the any of disasters that the check off is becoming. Your bais is showing again and its not surprising.

 

[Tex]

TEX

NO where in that article does it say that NCBA forced this gentleman to resign. I have read the resignation letter that was sent to the state beef councils and no where in it does it say he his resigning because of the mess with NCBA or the any of disasters that the check off is becoming. Your bais is showing again and its not surprising.

It is no secret that they pressured him, is there? Maybe you missed that.

Nemrancher, I know you like things spelled out to you in black and white. You probably won't get that, but you can see the actions.

The -press in this case told only part of the story. It left out this:

The industry trade press has mostly been absent from duty. The Rod Smith article for Feedstuffs about the Ramey resignation ignores the multi-million dollar questions about financial management, but spends whole paragraphs on an accusation that Ramey listened in on a conference call to which he was not invited. That seems to me like a trivial matter. Smith's brief today editorializes that Jones "was also caught up in the apparently now-failed maneuvers by the board's executive committee to restructure how beef checkoff programs are approved and funded by trying to pull the Federation of State Beef Councils out of the National Cattlemen's Beef Assn. (NCBA)." I imagine most beef producers must be appalled at the anti-reform spin and will seek their information elsewhere. Won't somebody in the trade press give this story the real investigation it deserves? Or will it all be swept under the rug?

You probably wont' be able to make reasonable observations if you can't decipher these actions and what they mean.
Tex

 

[nenmrancher]

Tex what you keep ignoring is that the CBB executive board got caught trying to influnce things that the CBB had no buisness being involved in. The only thing the CBB should be worried about is the checkoff and not should not be in the middle of the NCBA/RCALF fight. The two people who have resigned got caught doing things they shouldnt have, and to be honest with you I think that USDA should clean house of all the folks on the executive committee and prob most of the rest of the folks on the CBB. I will again say that the folks serving on the board should have no ties to any state or national groups and if they cant give up those connections they should get off the CBB

 

[Tex]

Tex what you keep ignoring is that the CBB executive board got caught trying to influnce things that the CBB had no buisness being involved in. The only thing the CBB should be worried about is the checkoff and not should not be in the middle of the NCBA/RCALF fight. The two people who have resigned got caught doing things they shouldnt have, and to be honest with you I think that USDA should clean house of all the folks on the executive committee and prob most of the rest of the folks on the CBB. I will again say that the folks serving on the board should have no ties to any state or national groups and if they cant give up those connections they should get off the CBB

Nemrancher, I think the head of the CBB should have been invited to be on that conference call.

They are responsible for increasing beef demand for the people paying for the checkoff, not just so it can be captured by meat packers. If meat packers have the NCBA under their influence, which I can definitely tell you they have (their talking points were a part of their Congressional testimony), then the CBB should cut the NCBA off immediately and and a new group should be reconstituted.

Meat packers took the GIPSA rules and spread a bunch of lies about them so the court cases would not be influenced by regulations required by the last farm bill. They used NCBA to do it. Much of it was unwitting, and I can tell you that because I spoke with some of the NCBA people who actually testified in front of Congress about their comments, but they are responsible for following meat packer talking points instead of looking into what was going on in the court cases that were cited.

I put this into the category of NCBA leadership being incompetent or corrupt, whichever fits them personally.

The condition was caused by meat packer's influence.

You may buy the whole CBB head listening in on that conference call something bad but I think all those conference calls should be made public to the people who are funding the checkoff program so we can make sure that our dollars are not going to a good old boys club of NCBA or other people misusing the funds to benefit meat packers and to protect the frauds they have been committing with the cases cited by GIPSA.

Tex

 

[nenmrancher]

Tex, personally I believe the CBB is just as incompetent or corrupt as you call the NCBA and the other thing I have to wonder just why the CBB is trying to get in the middle of the GIPSA rules. They have nothing what so ever to do with the running of the check off, the CBB needs to stay out of the politics and this is why I dont trust them or their anti-NCBA supporters. I look for those folks who are trying to oust NCBA to replace them with another group that is as bad if not worse than NCBA. I can just see RCALF trying to get their hands on the checkoff funds to fund endless lawsuits or LMA using check off funds to force all producers to sell all their animals through a sale ring. This is why I think that the CBB and the Federation should be non-political and only focus on promotion and you can throw your GIPSA rules arguement in all you want but I still have to say it has nothing to do with the check off.

 

[Tex]

Tex, personally I believe the CBB is just as incompetent or corrupt as you call the NCBA and the other thing I have to wonder just why the CBB is trying to get in the middle of the GIPSA rules. They have nothing what so ever to do with the running of the check off, the CBB needs to stay out of the politics and this is why I dont trust them or their anti-NCBA supporters. I look for those folks who are trying to oust NCBA to replace them with another group that is as bad if not worse than NCBA. I can just see RCALF trying to get their hands on the checkoff funds to fund endless lawsuits or LMA using check off funds to force all producers to sell all their animals through a sale ring. This is why I think that the CBB and the Federation should be non-political and only focus on promotion and you can throw your GIPSA rules arguement in all you want but I still have to say it has nothing to do with the check off.

I agree with you, nemrancher. I think the CBB and their agents should be working for the producers who are funding the beef checkoff. If NCBA or CBB only think about increasing demand without making sure that extra demand rolls through to the producers and allows meat packers to capture all the demand, then the beef checkoff is nothing more than free advertising for beef processors and the money is going in a sink hole.

I haven't said a lot about rcalf on these issues and have tried to stick with the actual issues, not some group like rcalf. Since NCBA seems to be calling the shots and getting the head of the CBB out, I think there are some real problems with the NCBA. The checkoff funds are taxes on producers, mostly cow calf producers, to promote beef demand and hence for them to get more money in their pocket. I applaud all kinds of efforts by producers to increase the quality of their herds to bring value to themselves but this too should not be captured by meat packers only.

Neither you nor MRJ have looked into the GIPSA rules in the actual cases that went before the courts that were cited. I see that you are therefore making broad generalizations which may not be supported by actual facts these cases have brought up. You are just as guilty as the Catholic Church was or parents of children who didn't listen to their children when they were being abused by those in the Catholic Church because you haven't sought out the facts. You have sought out personalities to argue with.

I would agree with you that corruption is a potential problem in any power structure. That is why there needs to be safeguards in any power structure to handle this problem whether it be rcalf, NCBA, or as our founding fathers based our 3 branches, our government.

You speak about fears of things that are possible. I speak of things that have already happened, not just the fears.

We have a bit of corruption running so deep in our country and a population that will excuse that corruption (like the Catholic Church did) if it is in their organization. It diminishes their organization's moral and ethical standing. Just look at what money has done to our national government.

Tex