R-CALF President Notes Group’s
Views On Checkoff, Animal ID
By David Bowser
TUCUMCARI, N.M. — Chuck Kiker, a Beaumont, Texas cattleman and president of R-CALF USA, says he learned soon after joining R-CALF that most of its members weren't opposed to the beef checkoff. The problem — the thing that many in the organization are opposed to — is what's being done with the checkoff dollars.
"The first convention I went to," Kiker says, "they made a resolution to join with LMA on the lawsuit over the beef checkoff. I stood up and said, 'Guys, that's a mistake.' The checkoff isn't the problem. That's the greatest thing we've ever done to increase beef demand."
He says he thinks there are questions about how it's spent, but the checkoff is a legitimate program.
"Killing it wasn't the answer," Kiker says.
He stood up and voiced his opinion.
"Today, R-CALF is not opposed to the beef checkoff," Kiker notes.
He says R-CALF has a resolution concerning the checkoff that the membership is voting on now.
"I think it's going to pass," Kiker says. "It will put us in a position that we support the checkoff, but there are differing opinions on how it is handled and some things that can be done to improve it after 20 years."
Animal ID, he says, works the same way.
"There are a lot of differing opinions," Kiker says, "and if we're going to grow as an organization, we need to learn to work out those differing opinions and come to some consensus."
He says the cow-calf industry is missing the ability for producers to come to a consensus. Kiker says that when an organization goes to Washington to talk to lawmakers, they need to have a united front.
There are members who support an animal ID system. There are members who are totally opposed.
When Kiker accepted the presidency of R-CALF last year, he said the organization represented mainstream agriculture.
For that reason, Kiker says, he intends to set a course down the middle of the road.
Mike Johns, president of the National Cattlemen's Beef Association, told Kiker at one of their debates this year that the only things in the middle of the road are dead armadillos. Kiker says he took offense at that.
"I said ‘At least we're not way out there in a ditch dodging trees,’" Kiker says.
Kiker says there is room in R-CALF for differing opinions. Those opinions can be discussed and debated. Eventually, a consensus can be reached, and that consensus will usually be somewhere in the middle of an issue.
He says he resents organizations or governmental agencies that try to dictate that it has to be their way or the highway.
"Everybody all over the country has a different opinion on animal ID," Kiker points out.
Speaking to a group of ranchers here in Tucumcari, Kiker noted that New Mexico is a brand state.
"R-CALF has supported each state using the tracking devices and techniques they have in place in a voluntary program to initiate animal ID," Kiker said.
That means that New Mexico and other brand states should be able to use their existing systems to track their cattle for health reasons.
He said he was in meetings three years ago in which different cattlemen's groups were splitting up the profits of an animal ID program, assigning exclusive rights to sell tags and equipment.
"That's when R-CALF started fighting it,” Kiker said.
But that fight has to be fought in Washington, and it will take time and effort.
"The one thing you can't do when you go to Washington," Kiker said, "is say, ‘We oppose animal ID. We're not doing it.’ They walk up and say, 'Thank you, Mr. Kiker. We appreciate your comment. Let us know when you're back in town.'"
He said, however, that if a group goes to Washington with a plan, lawmakers and regulators will listen.
"They let you participate on committees," Kiker said. "You tell them you want to be involved."
He said that's what R-CALF has done.
"We were extremely concerned about the direction it was going at NCBA," Kiker said, "because they wanted it all. At one point, NCBA thought they were going to get the whole thing for all species. Do you know how many millions of dollars they would have profited from that? Who have they been lobbying for with those profits? That's a little scary. We didn't want that to happen."
Consequently, he said R-CALF set out on a course to get some allies.
"We found out real quick the state animal health vets didn't want it to go to a private organization like that, so we got in and started talking to them," Kiker said.
Kiker said that from a strictly animal health viewpoint, animal identification is good.
"It would be fantastic."
Kiker said Dr. Bob Hillman, the state veterinarian in Texas, is a personal friend.
"He fights TB, fever ticks, brucellosis, he's even been involved with chicken flu," Kiker said. "He could use some animal ID."
Kiker said Texas animal health inspectors might find a cow with brucellosis, and they can't figure out where it came from.
"He knows somewhere else is where that cow got it," Kiker said.
Kiker said that must be frustrating for Hillman.
"On the other hand," Kiker said, "when you look at the ramifications of a national ID program that's controlled by the wrong people, it will work to vertically integrate the industry more."
Kiker said that information can be used by cattle buyers to hammer down prices.
"You used to be able to use that performance information to sell your cattle if you wanted to," Kiker said, "but you should definitely be able to get a premium."
Right now, he said, various industry analysts are touting premiums for source verification and age verification, but as it becomes more prevalent, the premiums will go away and cattle without the records will be discounted.
"We're very concerned about animal ID and the direction," Kiker said. "We have worked with USDA. They've backed up a lot. They know we don't want it. We stopped it in Texas."
He said that in the Lone Star State, the government was about to impose mandatory premise registration.
"Enough people called their legislators and said, 'What in the world are ya'll doing?’" Kiker said. "The Texas Animal Health Commission backed up from it and said they were going to continue it as a volunteer program."
Kiker cautioned that a mandatory program is still in the plans.
"Don't let anybody kid you," Kiker said.
He said ranchers need to be involved in the issue.
"When we went to Washington two months ago," Kiker said, "we sat in front of John Clifford himself, Dr. John Clifford, who's over the whole deal, and said, 'Why can't a brand state use their brand?'"
Clifford agreed that they can.
"The only thing he saw as a problem," Kiker said, "was interstate traffic of cattle."
Kiker said the brand states need to figure out a solution for that.
"You need solutions," Kiker said. "You can't go to Washington and just say no. You've got to have solutions. We can work with you on that, because when we come to Washington now we have solutions, and they sit down and listen to us."
Secretary of Agriculture Mike Johanns and his staff are listening, Kiker said, because R-CALF represents cow-calf producers.
Kiker said he was invited to Australia to talk to producers about the U.S. animal ID system.
"They were told we have traceback," Kiker said. "there were people who called me everything but a liar when I said I ship cattle from Beaumont, Texas, to Kansas without so much as a brand or a tag."
He was asked how he did that.
"I said, 'You put them on a truck,'" Kiker said.
When Kiker told the Aussies that Texas doesn't even have a strong brand inspection system, they asked how he kept people from stealing cattle.
"I told him, 'We carry guns,'" Kiker said. "Those people believed me."
Kiker said Australians were being told that the U.S. had an animal identification program, and the Australians are facing a mandatory program. He said Australia has an identification system using tail tags.
"They put it on a cow's tail, and it stops at her switch," Kiker said. "It was basically a premise ID. That's what they want to keep."
He said their premise identification system is working well for them.
Kiker said the Australians are going to radio frequency identification tags, electronic eartags, and they're having problems reading them.
One U.S. company has the contract to provide all the tags in Australia, Kiker noted.
"They have 80 percent readability," he added.
R-CALF's president, however, questions what producers in different countries are being told about animal ID programs in other parts of the world.
"They're still being told in Australia that we have animal ID," Kiker said. "We're still being told that Canada has animal ID."
Canada's system is nothing more than putting a tag in the animal's ear when it's born, he pointed out.
"There's no traceback per se," he said. "They know where the calf started and when it was slaughtered."
Kiker said that would work fairly well in the U.S. with the country's system of sales receipts.
"They could trace an animal pretty quickly," Kiker said. "The USDA has admitted that. There's an alternative to the national ID system that's been proposed. We need to come up with some alternatives, because USDA does have the authority to implement a mandatory animal ID program."
He said opponents to the proposed system either need to get enough legislative support to stop it or figure out what the industry can live with.
Kiker said R-CALF is taking steps to change the direction of the national animal identification system in case it does become mandatory.
Bill Hawkes, a former undersecretary of Agriculture, has now signed on to help R-CALF, Kiker said.
"He was a very fair undersecretary, and he included R-CALF in most of his discussions," Kiker explained. "Anything that was going on as far as cattle, he included us. He's no longer undersecretary, but he still has a tremendous amount of influence in Washington."
Hawkes is now on retainer as a consultant for R-CALF, Kiker said.
"He's working with us on animal ID," Kiker said. "So is Valerie Reagan. She's his partner. She was one of the health experts who worked on animal ID. She was in charge of the brucellosis program in the early 1990s that resulted in just almost the eradication of brucellosis."
Kiker said they're trying to find answers that cattle producers can live with.
"They understand that what's being presented isn't going to work," Kiker said.
Certain steps need to be taken, he opined.
"We think that the state animal health commissions are definitely stakeholders in this," Kiker said.
They are the ones that producers from each state need to go through on animal ID.
"That's the structure that we've lived with forever," Kiker pointed out, "and it's worked pretty well."
It's the animal health officials who regulate animal disease control in each state.
"If this is truly a health issue," Kiker said, "they need to handle it."
It's been the animal health commissions and state veterinarians who have dealt with tuberculosis, brucellosis and other animal health issues.
Kiker said they've gotten some help on this approach from organizations like the U.S. Animal Health Association.
"That's how we beat NCBA back on this deal," Kiker noted.
He said what NCBA was proposing would have been a burden on the cattle industry.
"We would like to see it funded like other animal health programs," Kiker said. "We think it ought to be funded by the USDA or whoever is going to mandate it."
He said R-CALF is also pushing a Freedom of Information Act resolution to protect producer information. Kiker pointed out that there are exemptions under the Freedom of Information Act listing information that is not to be released publicly.
"USDA actually pushed that," Kiker said.
NCBA, he continued, was saying that if they managed the animal ID database, the information wouldn't be made public.
"That didn't make me too comfortable," Kiker said.
He said states started making that information exempt from release, but nothing was happening on the national level.
He said R-CALF wants an animal ID system that will be run at the state level. It needs to be funded by whoever makes it mandatory, and there needs to be a fair and impartial cost analysis on the program.
Being at the table to explain those views is important.
"We're opposed to a mandatory system," Kiker said. "That's given us a little bit of freedom to participate in the voluntary system."
He said the voluntary system could eventually evolve into a mandatory system.
"We definitely want to participate in that, because if it does go mandatory, we want to get it as workable as possible for cattle producers and our members," Kiker said.
"R-CALF is truly a large organization," Kiker said. "There's lots of differing opinions on whether we should even have an animal ID system, whether we need an animal ID, what it should incorporate, what it should be like."
Without the input of cow-calf operators, he said, those decisions will be left to others with other agendas.
Views On Checkoff, Animal ID
By David Bowser
TUCUMCARI, N.M. — Chuck Kiker, a Beaumont, Texas cattleman and president of R-CALF USA, says he learned soon after joining R-CALF that most of its members weren't opposed to the beef checkoff. The problem — the thing that many in the organization are opposed to — is what's being done with the checkoff dollars.
"The first convention I went to," Kiker says, "they made a resolution to join with LMA on the lawsuit over the beef checkoff. I stood up and said, 'Guys, that's a mistake.' The checkoff isn't the problem. That's the greatest thing we've ever done to increase beef demand."
He says he thinks there are questions about how it's spent, but the checkoff is a legitimate program.
"Killing it wasn't the answer," Kiker says.
He stood up and voiced his opinion.
"Today, R-CALF is not opposed to the beef checkoff," Kiker notes.
He says R-CALF has a resolution concerning the checkoff that the membership is voting on now.
"I think it's going to pass," Kiker says. "It will put us in a position that we support the checkoff, but there are differing opinions on how it is handled and some things that can be done to improve it after 20 years."
Animal ID, he says, works the same way.
"There are a lot of differing opinions," Kiker says, "and if we're going to grow as an organization, we need to learn to work out those differing opinions and come to some consensus."
He says the cow-calf industry is missing the ability for producers to come to a consensus. Kiker says that when an organization goes to Washington to talk to lawmakers, they need to have a united front.
There are members who support an animal ID system. There are members who are totally opposed.
When Kiker accepted the presidency of R-CALF last year, he said the organization represented mainstream agriculture.
For that reason, Kiker says, he intends to set a course down the middle of the road.
Mike Johns, president of the National Cattlemen's Beef Association, told Kiker at one of their debates this year that the only things in the middle of the road are dead armadillos. Kiker says he took offense at that.
"I said ‘At least we're not way out there in a ditch dodging trees,’" Kiker says.
Kiker says there is room in R-CALF for differing opinions. Those opinions can be discussed and debated. Eventually, a consensus can be reached, and that consensus will usually be somewhere in the middle of an issue.
He says he resents organizations or governmental agencies that try to dictate that it has to be their way or the highway.
"Everybody all over the country has a different opinion on animal ID," Kiker points out.
Speaking to a group of ranchers here in Tucumcari, Kiker noted that New Mexico is a brand state.
"R-CALF has supported each state using the tracking devices and techniques they have in place in a voluntary program to initiate animal ID," Kiker said.
That means that New Mexico and other brand states should be able to use their existing systems to track their cattle for health reasons.
He said he was in meetings three years ago in which different cattlemen's groups were splitting up the profits of an animal ID program, assigning exclusive rights to sell tags and equipment.
"That's when R-CALF started fighting it,” Kiker said.
But that fight has to be fought in Washington, and it will take time and effort.
"The one thing you can't do when you go to Washington," Kiker said, "is say, ‘We oppose animal ID. We're not doing it.’ They walk up and say, 'Thank you, Mr. Kiker. We appreciate your comment. Let us know when you're back in town.'"
He said, however, that if a group goes to Washington with a plan, lawmakers and regulators will listen.
"They let you participate on committees," Kiker said. "You tell them you want to be involved."
He said that's what R-CALF has done.
"We were extremely concerned about the direction it was going at NCBA," Kiker said, "because they wanted it all. At one point, NCBA thought they were going to get the whole thing for all species. Do you know how many millions of dollars they would have profited from that? Who have they been lobbying for with those profits? That's a little scary. We didn't want that to happen."
Consequently, he said R-CALF set out on a course to get some allies.
"We found out real quick the state animal health vets didn't want it to go to a private organization like that, so we got in and started talking to them," Kiker said.
Kiker said that from a strictly animal health viewpoint, animal identification is good.
"It would be fantastic."
Kiker said Dr. Bob Hillman, the state veterinarian in Texas, is a personal friend.
"He fights TB, fever ticks, brucellosis, he's even been involved with chicken flu," Kiker said. "He could use some animal ID."
Kiker said Texas animal health inspectors might find a cow with brucellosis, and they can't figure out where it came from.
"He knows somewhere else is where that cow got it," Kiker said.
Kiker said that must be frustrating for Hillman.
"On the other hand," Kiker said, "when you look at the ramifications of a national ID program that's controlled by the wrong people, it will work to vertically integrate the industry more."
Kiker said that information can be used by cattle buyers to hammer down prices.
"You used to be able to use that performance information to sell your cattle if you wanted to," Kiker said, "but you should definitely be able to get a premium."
Right now, he said, various industry analysts are touting premiums for source verification and age verification, but as it becomes more prevalent, the premiums will go away and cattle without the records will be discounted.
"We're very concerned about animal ID and the direction," Kiker said. "We have worked with USDA. They've backed up a lot. They know we don't want it. We stopped it in Texas."
He said that in the Lone Star State, the government was about to impose mandatory premise registration.
"Enough people called their legislators and said, 'What in the world are ya'll doing?’" Kiker said. "The Texas Animal Health Commission backed up from it and said they were going to continue it as a volunteer program."
Kiker cautioned that a mandatory program is still in the plans.
"Don't let anybody kid you," Kiker said.
He said ranchers need to be involved in the issue.
"When we went to Washington two months ago," Kiker said, "we sat in front of John Clifford himself, Dr. John Clifford, who's over the whole deal, and said, 'Why can't a brand state use their brand?'"
Clifford agreed that they can.
"The only thing he saw as a problem," Kiker said, "was interstate traffic of cattle."
Kiker said the brand states need to figure out a solution for that.
"You need solutions," Kiker said. "You can't go to Washington and just say no. You've got to have solutions. We can work with you on that, because when we come to Washington now we have solutions, and they sit down and listen to us."
Secretary of Agriculture Mike Johanns and his staff are listening, Kiker said, because R-CALF represents cow-calf producers.
Kiker said he was invited to Australia to talk to producers about the U.S. animal ID system.
"They were told we have traceback," Kiker said. "there were people who called me everything but a liar when I said I ship cattle from Beaumont, Texas, to Kansas without so much as a brand or a tag."
He was asked how he did that.
"I said, 'You put them on a truck,'" Kiker said.
When Kiker told the Aussies that Texas doesn't even have a strong brand inspection system, they asked how he kept people from stealing cattle.
"I told him, 'We carry guns,'" Kiker said. "Those people believed me."
Kiker said Australians were being told that the U.S. had an animal identification program, and the Australians are facing a mandatory program. He said Australia has an identification system using tail tags.
"They put it on a cow's tail, and it stops at her switch," Kiker said. "It was basically a premise ID. That's what they want to keep."
He said their premise identification system is working well for them.
Kiker said the Australians are going to radio frequency identification tags, electronic eartags, and they're having problems reading them.
One U.S. company has the contract to provide all the tags in Australia, Kiker noted.
"They have 80 percent readability," he added.
R-CALF's president, however, questions what producers in different countries are being told about animal ID programs in other parts of the world.
"They're still being told in Australia that we have animal ID," Kiker said. "We're still being told that Canada has animal ID."
Canada's system is nothing more than putting a tag in the animal's ear when it's born, he pointed out.
"There's no traceback per se," he said. "They know where the calf started and when it was slaughtered."
Kiker said that would work fairly well in the U.S. with the country's system of sales receipts.
"They could trace an animal pretty quickly," Kiker said. "The USDA has admitted that. There's an alternative to the national ID system that's been proposed. We need to come up with some alternatives, because USDA does have the authority to implement a mandatory animal ID program."
He said opponents to the proposed system either need to get enough legislative support to stop it or figure out what the industry can live with.
Kiker said R-CALF is taking steps to change the direction of the national animal identification system in case it does become mandatory.
Bill Hawkes, a former undersecretary of Agriculture, has now signed on to help R-CALF, Kiker said.
"He was a very fair undersecretary, and he included R-CALF in most of his discussions," Kiker explained. "Anything that was going on as far as cattle, he included us. He's no longer undersecretary, but he still has a tremendous amount of influence in Washington."
Hawkes is now on retainer as a consultant for R-CALF, Kiker said.
"He's working with us on animal ID," Kiker said. "So is Valerie Reagan. She's his partner. She was one of the health experts who worked on animal ID. She was in charge of the brucellosis program in the early 1990s that resulted in just almost the eradication of brucellosis."
Kiker said they're trying to find answers that cattle producers can live with.
"They understand that what's being presented isn't going to work," Kiker said.
Certain steps need to be taken, he opined.
"We think that the state animal health commissions are definitely stakeholders in this," Kiker said.
They are the ones that producers from each state need to go through on animal ID.
"That's the structure that we've lived with forever," Kiker pointed out, "and it's worked pretty well."
It's the animal health officials who regulate animal disease control in each state.
"If this is truly a health issue," Kiker said, "they need to handle it."
It's been the animal health commissions and state veterinarians who have dealt with tuberculosis, brucellosis and other animal health issues.
Kiker said they've gotten some help on this approach from organizations like the U.S. Animal Health Association.
"That's how we beat NCBA back on this deal," Kiker noted.
He said what NCBA was proposing would have been a burden on the cattle industry.
"We would like to see it funded like other animal health programs," Kiker said. "We think it ought to be funded by the USDA or whoever is going to mandate it."
He said R-CALF is also pushing a Freedom of Information Act resolution to protect producer information. Kiker pointed out that there are exemptions under the Freedom of Information Act listing information that is not to be released publicly.
"USDA actually pushed that," Kiker said.
NCBA, he continued, was saying that if they managed the animal ID database, the information wouldn't be made public.
"That didn't make me too comfortable," Kiker said.
He said states started making that information exempt from release, but nothing was happening on the national level.
He said R-CALF wants an animal ID system that will be run at the state level. It needs to be funded by whoever makes it mandatory, and there needs to be a fair and impartial cost analysis on the program.
Being at the table to explain those views is important.
"We're opposed to a mandatory system," Kiker said. "That's given us a little bit of freedom to participate in the voluntary system."
He said the voluntary system could eventually evolve into a mandatory system.
"We definitely want to participate in that, because if it does go mandatory, we want to get it as workable as possible for cattle producers and our members," Kiker said.
"R-CALF is truly a large organization," Kiker said. "There's lots of differing opinions on whether we should even have an animal ID system, whether we need an animal ID, what it should incorporate, what it should be like."
Without the input of cow-calf operators, he said, those decisions will be left to others with other agendas.