Beef and cattle imported into the country could soon be subject to a checkoff similar to the mandatory national checkoff paid by Canadian cattle producers.

Travis Toews, president of the Canadian Cattlemen's Association, says the move to once again make the national cattle checkoff mandatory in Alberta sets the stage for the new checkoff on imports. The Alberta government and beef industry groups have decided to reinstate the mandatory dollar-per-head national checkoff, after making it refundable earlier this year.

"Upon completion of that, we can then work to collect a checkoff on imports. That's now able to proceed," says Toews. "That was really a goal right from the start of the whole initiative, to implement a national program so we can implement a checkoff on beef and cattle coming into the country."

He says the checkoff on imports will add an estimated 800 thousand dollars in funding for the CCA's national beef marketing and research organizations. "At a time when we leverage producer checkoff funds against other government funding sources, that can really translate into a significant amount of funding for the industry," he says.

"There's a fair bit of legal work that needs to be done, but now that process can begin."

In addition to setting the stage for the import checkoff, Toews says the decision by the Alberta beef industry to reinstate the checkoff will be a major benefit for the Beef Information Centre, the Canada Beef Export Federation and the Beef Cattle Research Council. "Alberta contributes around one half of the industry funding and consequently it created a large unknown as to how much would be refunded to producers and how much would be left in the system."

~ Monday, October 25, 2010 ~