DENVER – A $42.8 million investment of the Cattlemen’s Beef Board (C.B.B.) Fiscal Year 2011 budget on a total of 42 national checkoff programs and associated costs was approved this week by the Beef Promotion Operating Committee.

C.B.B. approved a budget of $40.6 million for Fiscal Year 2011, which begins Oct. 1, at the 2010 Cattle Industry Summer Conference in July. Thanks to current checkoff revenues exceeding projections and an increase in next year’s projected revenues, the Operating Committee on Tuesday recommended an amendment that increased that Fiscal Year 2011 budget to the $42.8 million.

C.B.B.’s FY 2011 budget is 2% less than the $43.8 million budget in Fiscal Year 2010 and 20% less than five years ago. The amended budget must be approved by the full Beef Board, as well as the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

Members of the Beef Promotion Operating Committee, which include 10 members of the Cattlemen’s Beef Board and 10 members of the Federation of State Beef Councils, met Sept. 20-21 in Denver. They heard presentations of 48 proposals for checkoff funding in Fiscal Year 2011, asked questions about each, then voted on a Fiscal Year 2011 Plan of Work that included 42 of those programs.

The approved national checkoff programs for Fiscal Year 2011 include:

  • Approximately $18.1 million for promotion.
  • Almost $6.7 million for research projects focusing on a variety of critical issues, including beef-safety research, product enhancement research, human nutrition research, and market research. This funding also included $784,400 for a life cycle assessment – or environmental profile – of U.S. beef production.
  • More than $4.6 million for consumer information programs.
  • Approximately $3.3 million for industry information projects.
  • More than $5.7 million for foreign marketing and education efforts about U.S. beef in the A.S.E.A.N. region; the Caribbean; Central and South America; the Dominican Republic; Europe; the Middle East; China/Hong Kong; Japan; Mexico; Russia; South Korea; and Taiwan.
  • Approximately $1.7 million in Beef Board dollars for producer communications.

Programs authorized by the Operating Committee must be approved by U.S.D.A.