Acting on a deal struck last month between Alberta Beef Producers and the Alberta Cattle Feeders Association, the Alberta government is officially moving to restore a mandatory, non-refundable national beef levy.
The ABP and ACFA recently signed a memorandum of agreement (MOA) to set up the new $1 non-refundable levy using ABP’s regulatory power under the province’s Marketing of Agricultural Products Act.
Amendments to the Alberta Beef Producers regulations will allow the non-refundable levy to be implemented before the end of the year, but with an expiration date of March 13, 2013, the province said Thursday.
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“I am pleased the beef industry has come to an agreement on this issue and I thank them for their determination and effort,” provincial Agriculture Minister Jack Hayden said Thursday in a release.
“A national approach to global markets makes good sense,” said Hayden, currently in Japan promoting Alberta beef. “As a leader in the beef industry, Alberta must be actively participating in the national approach to promoting beef and beef products.”
The Alberta agriculture department, then led by George Groeneveld as ag minister, moved last year to make the checkoff refundable starting in April 2010.
The $1-per-head national checkoff is a third of the $3 ABP checkoff, of which the remaining $2 would remain refundable.
“Stable funding”
The national checkoff on beef and beef products is directed to fund the work of the Canadian Beef Cattle Research, Market Development and Promotion Agency in marketing beef products both domestically and internationally.
“This (MOA) is focused on accountability and results to ensure that the levy is benefiting producers,” ACFA chairman Doug Price — whose organization along with the Western Stock Growers Association (WSGA) had previously pressed for the refundable checkoff — said Thursday in the province’s release.
“The MOA is a start to bringing organizations together and moving the beef industry forward so we can tackle issues of common interest.”
“By making the $1 national beef checkoff a non-refundable component, the national agency will have a stable funding source for research and market development, which will help beef producers expand their markets and increase sales,” ABP executive director Rich Smith said in the same release.
“The beef industry will also be able to collect a levy on cattle and beef imported into Canada, totalling approximately $800,000 per year, which will in turn help level the playing field for Canadian producers.”
Thursday’s announcement leaves the WSGA alone to contend that Groeneveld’s refundable checkoff hasn’t had the time to prove it can work.
If its optional status is removed now, “grassroots producers will lose the leverage necessary to help direct changes at the national level,” the association said in a release in late September.
The WSGA said it would consider a reversal such as the one announced Thursday to be “extremely detrimental to the positive, evolving governance solutions taking place on issues that have plagued our industry for the past 10 years.”
