SPRINGFIELD, Ill. — Supporting the Livestock Management Facilities Act is one of several policy priorities set by the Illinois Beef Association.
“IBA always starts the year by setting policy priorities about issues facing our members,” said Jill Johnson, Illinois Beef Association executive vice president.
“For 2020, IBA committed to several things, including the LMFA as a balanced approach to protecting the environment and allowing farmers the ability to raise livestock on their farms,” said Johnson during the Cattlemen’s Education Series organized by the Illinois Beef Association.
The LMFA has been in place for more than 20 years.
“It has a great track record of ensuring livestock farms are sited and designed to protect the environment and allow farmers to raise livestock,” Johnson said. “It’s important because it provides statewide, consistent standards that are regulated through the Department of Agriculture.”
Another IBA priority is supporting and maintaining a balanced system for antibiotic use.
“Over the past couple of years we’ve seen state legislation filed that would seek to further regulate antibiotic use on farms,” Johnson said. “When we talk to legislators we stress that farmers have long been concerned with the welfare of livestock and we also discuss the Beef Quality Assurance Program that includes important industry guidelines for animal care.”
At the national level, the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association is focused on building a successful regulatory framework to ensure appropriate oversight and labeling of lab-grown meat.
“NCBA is also focused on advancing legislative and regulatory efforts to end deceptive labeling of plant-based proteins and continue to push back on false health and environmental claims that disparage beef’s good name,” Johnson said.
The IBA leaders decided to run an advertising campaign to highlight the differences in beef and plant-based proteins.
“The message was seen by thousands of Illinois residents earlier this year that there’s no substitute for beef,” Johnson said.
Once the coronavirus pandemic hit the United States, Johnson said, a lot of what IBA had planned for the year came to a halt and priorities for the group shifted.
“We worked closely with our congressional delegation to make sure beef producers received assistance through the CARES Act,” Johnson said. “Generally, the beef industry doesn’t ask for support programs, but in the case of COVID-19 and what we saw happen to our supply chain and markets we heard from our members that they needed help.”
IBA worked with other community groups in the state when the Illinois Legislature was in session at the end of May to develop a budget for the 2021 fiscal year.
“We worked together to secure $5 million for market disruption support for livestock producers,” Johnson said. “That program is ongoing in terms of working out the details.”
IBA continues to use social media to promote the versatility of cooking beef. As the pandemic forced the closure of restaurants which resulted in the increase of people cooking meals at home, the beef group provided recipes, cooking lessons, and information needed for food safety such as how to freeze beef at home.
“We try to provide as much information as we can to consumers to help them have beef as the center of the plate and help them feel confident in what they are purchasing and how to prepare it at home,” Johnson said.
“Cattlemen have frustrations about the disparity between live cattle prices and the boxed beef price, first after a fire at a Tyson facility last year and most recently with the implications of COVID-19,” she said.
As a result, IBA wrote a letter to the Department of Justice to request an investigation of the extreme market shifts.
“There’s an investigation with USDA, but we felt it was imperative the DOJ step in and be part of that investigation,” Johnson said.
IBA members approved policy to focus on price discovery and transparency.
“Our members passed policy that supports robust price discovery by compelling packers to purchase cattle through negotiated cash trade at regional levels,” Johnson said. “We’re working with other states to find an approach that will work best for the industry.”
At the national level, Johnson said, every cattleman’s organization affiliated with NCBA across the country agreed to one thing — there is need for the industry to increase price discovery to robust levels.
“Where the organizations disagree is the avenue to reach those levels of robust price discovery,” she said.
At the NCBA Summer Business meeting, the committee meeting that included the cattle marketing discussion was scheduled to meet for two hours.
“That meeting lasted for six hours with some pretty intense debate,” Johnson said.
“What came out of that discussion is part of the industry wants to reach robust price discovery through voluntary means and the other part feels a voluntary approach has not been working,” she said.
“The result of the meeting is a compromise policy that first commits to working on a voluntary approach,” she said. “But if that doesn’t happen or if we’re not able to reach significant price discovery levels within specific regions then it’s going to trigger NCBA to pursue a legislative or regulatory solution to assist in reaching those levels.”
August 26, 2020 at 05:44AM
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