Beef beef.

• Author: Wynn, Weldon
• Position: LETTERS - Letter to the editor

We were disappointed to read an article in the Washington Monthly (Siddhartha Mahanta, "Big Beef," January/ February 2014) about the beef checkoff program containing a number of factual errors that could have been corrected if we had been contacted by the author.

Checkoff dollars do not fund lobbying activities by the National Cattlemen's Beef Association (NCBA), as the article contends. The use of checkoff dollars for lobbying activities is expressly forbidden, and we go to great lengths to ensure this does not happen.

It is also inaccurate to say the beef checkoff program is funded by federal "tax dollars collected by the government." The program is funded by beef producers from their own hard-earned dollars made on the sale of their animals. The NCBA does not receive "nearly 99 percent" of the checkoff dollars contracted through the Cattlemen's Beef Board, as stated in the article. In fact, 34.2 percent of the national fiscal year 2014 checkoff program's budget was awarded to other contractors, including the U.S. Meat Export Federation, North American Meat Association, National Livestock Producers Association, and American National CattleWomen.

Weldon Wynn

Chairman, Cattlemen's...