WESTLOCK, Alta. – Alberta Beef Producers members are worried the province’s agriculture minister will order their organization to give up its mandatory checkoff and divide it among other beef cattle groups.
Harvey Hagman, an ABP director, said other smaller cattle groups such as the Western Stock Growers Association and the Beef Initiative Group have lobbied George Groeneveld for a refundable checkoff or a directional checkoff, where producers can choose which organization their $3 levy is sent.
“Your voice is being divided,” Hagman told producers at a meeting.
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ABP finance chair Kelly Olson said the organization would have trouble operating without assured funding. The $12 million budget is based on the checkoff from sales of four million animals.
“If we had a refundable checkoff, our organization would be destroyed,” said Olson.
Money from the checkoff is used to fight trade challenges, launch ad campaigns and promote Canadian beef. Olson estimates the organization needs about $10 million in a reserve to fight possible trade challenges.
There are three ways a checkoff can be changed from mandatory to refundable. A petition with at least 20 percent of the cattle producers’ signatures is needed to launch a plebiscite. Also, the agriculture minister or ABP’s directors can request a change.
In 1994, the then Alberta Cattle Commission asked 7,400 producers if they wanted to keep the mandatory checkoff. Of the 52 percent who voted, they agreed to keep their checkoff mandatory.
Olson said this time the provincial minister is not on their side.
“He doesn’t like us very much. He doesn’t think we’re doing very well,” said Olson.
If a small cattle producer requested his checkoff back, it would not be much of a problem, but if a large feedlot operator requested a refund, it would throw the organization into turmoil, he said.
