The Beef Promotion Operating Committee has recommended a $45.8 million Cattlemen’s Beef Board budget for Fiscal 2009, reflecting a 6.6% decrease from the $49 million budget for Fiscal 2008.

The 2009 budget for the Beef Board, which administers the national checkoff program and still must be approved by the full Beef Board and USDA, includes the following budget components:

• Promotion ($19.97 million)
  
• Research ($7 million)
  
• Consumer Information ($5.4 million)
  
• Industry Information ($2.6 million)
  
• Foreign Marketing ($5.8 million)
  
• Producer Communications ($2.16 million)
  
• Evaluation ($335,000)
  
• Program Development ($125,000)
  
• USDA oversight ($255,000)
  
• Administration ($2 million)

The biggest cuts came in the areas of promotion, down 12.4% from Fiscal 2008, and consumer information, down 13.3%. Cattlemen on the Operating Committee recommended increasing checkoff investments in foreign marketing by 11.2% as overseas opportunities expand.

In the coming stages of the fiscal 2009 budgeting process, the full Beef Board will be asked to approve the budget at its July meeting in Denver. Joint industry advisory committees and subcommittees also will meet in Denver to prepare recommendations for specific program proposals that are funded with that budget. Those proposals will be considered by the Operating Committee in September, before the Oct. 1 start of the fiscal year, and must finally be approved by USDA before any checkoff dollars may be spent.

Funds from the Beef Board for national checkoff programs in Fiscal 2009 will be augmented by about $10.5 million in voluntary contributions from state beef councils to their national Federation of State Beef Councils, a division of the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association.
-- Beef Board release