We want life to be a give and take world.

But sometimes what we are taking isn't as obvious to us as what we are giving.

To many, the benefits of the Beef Checkoff are not as obvious as what it costs. They can easily see the dollar per animal sold, but to see all the benefits of the Beef Checkoff, it takes time and energy. Some look no further than the cattle magazines on a coffee table in a feed yard and think all the money is being spent on communicating just to cattlemen. In fact one cattleman was quoted as he was flipping through a livestock magazine, "Spending billions of dollars advertising beef to cattlemen instead of consumers...just doesn't make sense." Well it doesn't, and it wouldn't but billions haven't been spent. The idea that billions or anywhere near that has been spent on producer communications is simply ludicrous.

Those who pay have a right to know what they are paying for and how it's being spent. A very small percent has been spent to keep the cattle industry informed of how the checkoff money is spent.

If we go back to 1988, 16 years, the total is 22.2 million (including actual expenditures for fiscal years 1988 through 2001 and budgeted amounts for fiscal 2002 and 2003).

So, all told, that comes to a maximum of $22.2 million over 16 years, for an annual average of about $1.39 million, or about $1.29 investment per producer per year.

In fact, the Beef Checkoff Program spends less per producer on producer communications than possibly any other commodity checkoff program:

	per Producer per Year
• Dairy	$ 50.46
• Cotton	$ 28.43
• Potato	$ 24.71
• Soybean	$   8.22
• Pork	$   5.24

Checkoff dollars are invested in promotion, research, consumer information, industry information, foreign marketing and producer communications. Fifty percent automatically goes to the Beef Board and 50 percent is retained by the qualified state beef council for priorities established by producers at the state level.

Anyone who wants to have the information on where all the checkoff funds are utilized only has to spend some time and effort looking at the information that is available. With only about $1.29 on average over 16 years spent on producer communications, maybe more should be spent.

According to the Beef Promotion and Research Board, 91 percent of those responding to a recent survey wanted to know how the checkoff dollars were spent.

A promotional program that utilizes over 90 percent of each dollar for promotion is a very efficient program. When the overhead in any promotional program is less than 10 percent you've got a real bargain. The Beef Checkoff program targets the consumer with advertising of beef, industry information, foreign markets and producer communications.

The consumption or demand for beef is going up after many years of a downward trend. That's good, but why hasn't the producer or feeder realized more profit from increased demand for beef?

For that answer, look to the profits the packer is taking that have increased over time. But the real place to look is at retail. The retailer takes about 40 percent of every dollar spent at retail on beef. That's at the same time the feeder is taking a big loss. ©