Cattlemen's Beef Board Approves FY25 Budget and Checkoff Funded Programs

The Cattlemen's Beef Board (CBB) will invest approximately $38 million into programs of beef promotion, research, consumer information, industry information, foreign marketing, and producer communications during fiscal 2025, subject to USDA approval.

In action at the end of its Sept. 4-5 meeting in Denver, Colo., the Beef Promotion Operating Committee (BPOC) approved Checkoff funding for a total of 12 "Authorization Requests"—or grant proposals—for the fiscal year beginning Oct. 1, 2024. The committee, which includes 10 producers and importers from the Cattlemen's Beef Board and 10 producers from the Federation of State Beef Councils, also recommended full Cattlemen's Beef Board approval of a budget amendment to reflect the split of funding between budget categories affected by their decisions.

Eight contractors and two subcontractors brought 12 Authorization Requests worth approximately $46.8 million to the BPOC this week, approximately $8.8 million more than the funds available from the CBB budget.

"We're consistently impressed with the proposals that our contractors bring forward each year, and choosing which initiatives to fund is a real challenge," says Andy Bishop, CBB and BPOC chair. "Our budget amounts to slightly less each year because of inflation. To put it in perspective, a dollar in 1985 is worth just 35 cents¹ today. That means we simply don't have the buying power that we had when this program first started.