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Senators Support USDA's new GIPSA Rules

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Bullard: "If we are to improve beef demand, we must promote our product and explain how we raise our product to the members of these groups."

Wasn't R-CALF the group that said they were not in the "BEEF" industry but rather the "CATTLE" industry and now they are promoting beef? I thought promoting beef only benefitted the packers Mr. Bullard? I thought checkoff dollars were better spent on lawsuits against packers rather than promoting beef?

Does this mean that R-CALF has finally come to the realization that we/they are in the beef industry?

What a revelation.


~SH~
 
R-CALF's Unholy Alliances
Sep 3, 2010 12:41 PM, Troy Marshall

I spent my morning writing the above editorial with the honest goal of trying to promote reconciliation within the industry. Then I got the news that R-CALF had teamed up with an avid anti-beef group; it seemingly makes my earlier comments irrelevant, or at least very hard to justify.

Many within the industry who fought so hard and successfully to maintain domestic beef demand in the aftermath of BSE have long resented comments by R-CALF at that time questioning the safety of U.S. beef. I chalked those comments up to being just poorly considered words by those who believed that mandatory COOL and the end of the global beef trade would be advanced via this tactic. I assumed their hope was that beef demand could be rebuilt eventually.

Such comments continued, however, as reported previously in BEEF Cow-Calf Weekly, when R-CALF CEO Bill Bullard trashed the safety of U.S. beef before an audience in Australia. That incident made it obvious to me that the earlier words weren't a miscalculation but a deeply held conviction.

Then, this week, I learned that R-CALF had joined forces with Food and Water Watch (FWW) to campaign together in support of the proposed GIPSA rules. FWW is another one of those extreme activist groups that many of us in the industry wouldn't be aware of except for its sponsorship of the animated video called "The Meatrix" and Meatless Monday campaigns.

While FWW seems largely intent on bringing animal agriculture to an end, it is also hostile toward modern ag in general. What makes this group particularly offensive is its history of capitalizing on false science or simply making up things to promote its agenda. FWW is the embodiment of the philosophy that the end justifies the means.

I understand that political fights cost money and that R-CALF has partnered with anti-meat activist and consumer groups in the past to finance its agenda. But such alliances make it even harder for R-CALF to make its case that the proposed GIPSA rules are in the best interest of the industry; after all, three of the measure's biggest supporters are government bureaucrats, trial lawyers and anti-ag/anti-beef groups.

Politics makes strange bedfellows, one saying goes; another says that when you lay down with dogs, you're likely to get fleas.

R-CALF contends that its work with anti-beef groups on country-of-origin labeling and BSE is good political strategy. It also contends continued criticism by the National Cattlemen's Beef Association (NCBA) of these alliances is just an attempt by NCBA to deflect attention from the controversy over the beef checkoff. It's probably too obvious to point out the irony of that statement.

It is up to producers to make their organizations accountable and keep them focused on the industry's best interest. The cost of these games to the industry is simply becoming too high to continue to withstand them.
 
~SH~ said:
Bullard: "If we are to improve beef demand, we must promote our product and explain how we raise our product to the members of these groups."

Wasn't R-CALF the group that said they were not in the "BEEF" industry but rather the "CATTLE" industry and now they are promoting beef? I thought promoting beef only benefitted the packers Mr. Bullard? I thought checkoff dollars were better spent on lawsuits against packers rather than promoting beef?

Does this mean that R-CALF has finally come to the realization that we/they are in the beef industry?

What a revelation.


~SH~
:lol: :lol: :lol:
 
For the record, and of course, for our own Doubting Thomas, aka 'Tommy', NCBA simply fulfills contracts awarded by the Operating Committee of the CBB (comprised of representatives of ALL national cattle organizations, NOT just NCBA).

It is impossible for NCBA to "spend" any checkoff dollars not approved by the CBB and USDA.

That the system is complicated is not denied. That is it complicated in order to be extremely fine tuned to account PROPERLY for beef checkoff funds IS denied by those who WANT to find fault with NCBA.

Do not forget that some groups and individuals have spent many years and made many failed attempts to bring down NCBA as an organization of cattle producers! Even to the point of attempting to end the beef checkoff, MULTIPLE times. Not a very good success rate, but each attempt harms efforts of beef promotion EVERY time.

mrj
 
Sorry, it is you who have drank someones kool-aide. Check with the CBB and find out how the system works. They can't deny that their own Operating Committee makes the decisions awarding contracts.

Find out for yourself which cattle organizations have representatives on the CBB.

Check the law creating the beef checkoff.

mrj
 

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