The CattleCon, One Hell of a Party

By Jim Mundorf

Last week was the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association, NCBA’s, national convention, in New Orleans. They have appropriately named this get together the Cattle Con. I often describe the NCBA as a lobbyist organization, because what they do is lobby in D.C. for their clients, the corporate beef packers, and corporate cattle feeders. Lobbying is what they do best, and they are good at it. What a lot of cattle producers and beef consumers fail to realize is that the NCBA is also constantly lobbying them for support as well, and what’s worse is the NCBA uses cattlemen’s own money to do it.

The NCBA has access to just over $50 million of cattlemen’s dollars ($17 million this year, $33 million over three years.) This money comes to the NCBA through the checkoff, a one dollar tax on the cattlemen for every head of cattle sold. The people who approve handing this money over to the NCBA are the Cattlemen’s Beef Board. Although the USDA is supposed to oversee the checkoff, the NCBA controls every aspect of it, including where the Cattlemen’s Beef Board has their meetings, which happens to be at the NCBA’s yearly Cattle Con.

One Hell of a Party

I have talked to a number of people who have served on the beef board, with the hopes of changing how it operates. They had joined with others to try to take power away from the NCBA (all have told me it’s a lost cause.) Not long ago I was eating dinner with one of those ex-board members, when they said something I have thought a lot about since. While explaining to me how Beef Board met at the convention, they said, “Say what you want about the NCBA, but they sure know how to throw one hell of a party.” This took me by surprise, and as I listened to how great this party at the convention was, I could see in their eyes, that even though they disagreed with how the NCBA operates, they had a great time, and kind of wanted to go back. Truth be told, I kinda wanted to go too.

As I have thought about that conversation, and the look in those eyes, it has answered a lot of questions about how the NCBA gets the people that they are actually working against, to support them.

The CattleCon

Each year the checkoff pays for the 101 beef board members’ airfare, lodging and full access to the Cattle Con. (Convention tickets start at $1,075 x 101 = $108,575 for tickets) In other words a free vacation to New Orleans as long as they attend the lobbyist’s meetings. The meetings are updates from checkoff contractors, about how the program’s going. The main checkoff contractor is the NCBA. So the board gets a free vacation to the NCBA convention, where they sit through meetings, and are told how great of a job the NCBA is doing with their checkoff dollars. After the meetings they are free to attend the dinners, concerts and entertainment, hosted by the NCBA where they throw, “one hell of a party.”

The whole thing sounds like those time-share trips, where you get a free vacation if you sit through a sales pitch for the time-share. Only here they aren’t asking for your money to be signed over, they are simply asking the beef board members for their fellow cattlemen’s dollars, and if you keep signing over those dollars, you will keep your seat on the board and continue getting your free vacations.

The Sales Pitch

Before the convention I mentioned on Twitter that the NCBA’s goal is to get people to support them no matter what. I was then given a response that was the perfect example of how good the NCBA is at doing just that:

If you are wondering why cattlemen’s checkoff dollars are spent to send the board to this convention, this person just told you. “I support them more now after meeting them in person.” This is someone who had done their own research and had agreed with me, that the NCBA works against cattle producers, but after sitting down with the lobbyist in D.C. they were convinced otherwise. The lobbyist did such a good job, that when I explained to this person exactly what had happened they still didn’t get it.

The Shell Game

Another ex-Beef Board member once described the way the NCBA operates the checkoff as, “a money laundering shell game.” I have found this to be incredibly accurate, because everything that has to do with the checkoff is intentionally made to be incredibly complicated so that no one knows where any of the money goes. The CattleCon is filled with examples of this. Here’s one: Under the heading, “Industry Information”, the NCBA is given $2.5 million checkoff dollars partly to fund the Beef Quality Assurance program, BQA. BQA is listed as a convention sponsor. So the cattlemen pay into the checkoff, the checkoff pays the NCBA to fund BQA, and BQA helps pay for the NCBA convention that costs the cattlemen $1,075 to attend. That’s just one shell in the game. Another is that the Beef Board is listed as a convention host. I have been told that the hosts, split the cost of putting on the convention. So cattlemen’s checkoff dollars that are meant for promotion and research are spent to host a convention. Tickets for the full convention go from $1,075-$1,400. The smallest booth at the trade show costs $2,600 and there are 373 vendors. Then there are 84 corporate sponsors. Does this convention make a profit, and if so who gets it? I’m guessing it’s not the checkoff, so how much is this costing the checkoff, besides the hundreds of thousands of dollars spent simply to send their board members there? (There is no mention of convention costs being authorized on the checkoff website.)

The End Game

What’s the end game? Obviously this is about money, but there is much more to it. The NCBA needs the checkoff to exist, and the beef packers and their corporate cattle feeding partners desperately need the NCBA to exist, because with the checkoff’s assistance the NCBA can present themselves in Washington D.C. as a, “cattlemen’s organization.” Then they can lobby your senators on behalf of, “cattlemen.” What are they lobbying for? After this years convention the NCBA released a list of priorities for 2023. The one that caught my attention was, “Combat overly restrictive Packers & Stockyards (GIPSA) rules.” The Packers and Stockyards laws, (not rules) were written to prevent beef packers from becoming a monopoly, or from colluding together to act as a monopoly, and manipulating the market, which is exactly what has happened now that four beef packers control 85% of all beef produced in the U.S. Over the past few years, the Packers and Stockyards act has been ignored, and cattlemen have suffered from a manipulated market. Farmers and ranchers have begged their congressmen and the USDA to enforce the Packers and Stockyards act, and multiple new laws have been introduced that would make it harder for packers to manipulate the market. None of them have passed because, as their priority states, the NCBA has been, “combatting” these efforts every step of the way.

So for any cattlemen who have wondered where their checkoff dollars have been going, just know that when the shells in the game stop spinning, the money goes directly to combating the laws that were written to keep you in business. The beef checkoff was put in place by the 1985 farm bill. This year a new farm bill is being written. The time has come for Americans to stand up for independent cattle producers who feed them, and make sure that the new farm bill contains a new beef act. One that removes the NCBA’s control of beef checkoff dollars and ends the ultimate cattle con.

Correction: Originally it was published that the NCBA received $50 million checkoff dollars this year. I came up with that number by adding up approved Authorization Requests from the NCBA. Some of those requests were for a three year contract so while the $50 million approved is correct, $17 million is for this year and $33 million is spread over 3 year contracts. The second highest paid contractor is the U.S. Meat Export Federation receiving $8.2 Million.