Was in fact not a tax and was never intended to be one. It was a checkoff program. Checkoffs are producer funded and driven generic advertising programs intended to increase sales of various farm products. Christmas tree growers wanted to get on board with this concept to help real trees maintain their market share against artificial ones. Here is a pretty good story about it.
Such programs are common among various commodities. Here is a bit on the soybean checkoff which explains some parts of the concept.
There is a beef checkoff...a buck a head for every cow or calf sold for beef in the nation. Beef, it's whats for dinner, is an example of the resulting advertising campaigns.
There have been times when that beef checkoff has really ticked me off. Say when calves are bringing five bucks and out of that you pay the checkoff and commission and get nothing back at all. However, all those new cuts of beef you see, flat iron, etc....developed and promoted with beef checkoff dollars, in the interests of making beef more appealing. Plus lots of recipes and other programs are thusly funded.
There is a dairy check off too. Fifteen cents per hundred pounds for every bit of milk that leaves a dairy farm. We do not get to pass that along to consumers either, because our price is set by government formula, which does not take it into account. If it is in any way a tax, it is a tax on us, not on the folks who drink our product.
It has also irritated me on occasion, such as when it spent our money to help the EPA fund air quality studies on dairies. Seemed dumb at the time and seems even dumber now. However it also funds the wonderful Dairy Princess program and partners with grocery stores to better display our products, schools to convince students to drink it, and restaurants to use in new offerings to keep folks using it in drinks and as cheese on burgers. Here is a link to the local "chapter".
All three of the Northview crew served as dairy ambassadors on various Dairy Princess courts. They learned a great deal and spent a lot of time at various public affairs meeting consumers face to face and explaining about the value of dairy products in the diet. It was good for them and good for the industry. And it put faces on farmers in a very real and personal way for thousands of non-farm customers.
I have been appalled over the past couple of days by the sheer ignorance of some pundits on the topic of the Christmas tree checkoff. They are to be excused for not understanding the whole checkoff concept when the furor began. They are not to be excused for not doing their homework before they sounded off. I give them an F in research.
I am kind of on the fence on the whole checkoff concept though. It makes for splashy advertising and in the case of the dairy and beef checkoffs has come up with some really popular campaigns. However, it has pretty much been proven that such generic advertising has very little benefit for individual farmers and when it gets down to the nitty gritty that is who is paying for it.
12 comments:
You need to pass this on to Fox News. I knew this am that they had the story wrong. We have the check off for turkey production.
I've been aware of the check off thing only recently because of the Christmas tree "tax." Thanks for the information.
I do wish journalists would talk more to farmers who understand what is going on instead of leaping on a misleading story.
But if wishes were fishes...
You have certainly educated me, thank you, now I won't tell facebook how little I know about the subject.
As an agriculturist I salute you for your critical writing capability.
I sit on the fence too where check-offs are concerned. I'd like to see the money at least spent wisely and quite a bit of the time it just isn't.
I guess I'm on the fence also. It seems that often times it fattens pockets in the form of salaries and really doesn't do anything for the guy that had to pay the money in the first place.
This is really well done post, Threecollie...well done.
Linda
http://coloradofarmlife.wordpress.com
http://deltacountyhistoricalsociety.wordpress.com
I was yelling about this to the tv myself. Don't these idiots know what a checkoff is . Quite a bit of difference between that and a tax.
i thought a check off was something you did on a hockey rink? hey I'm back! Changing the blog to a food and recipe site. I now own over 150 cook books! Yea I have a problem LOL. 1st recipe is up.
Anon, if I knew how to do so, I would. I know there is plenty of misinformation out there, but this doesn't say much for the quality of reporting on ag.
Jan, ain't that the truth! Even when they do talk to farmers to get their side of the story they tend to produce sensational clap trap so much of the time. Guess it makes for better reading.
Earl, lol, not in any way intended for you...aimed straight at the msm
manikah, and I in turn salute you for spamming. Thanks
Linda, I would be all for it if there was any proof that it actually did anything to increase prices at the farm gate. Alas, it seems to not be the case at least when it comes to dairy
LInda, I always thought the dairy checkoff did a pretty good job on a tight budget until the air quality thing. I wrote a scathing FArm Side about it at the time and the president of the ADADC called me on the phone and lobbied me for a couple of hours on just how wrong I was. I think the current trend in air quality regs proves me more right than wrong. The day I volunteer to give my advertising money to a hostile government agency.....bah
Sarpy Sam, hey there! Good to hear from you. Hope all is well with you and yours. I yell at the TV too and this has been plumb frustrating. I'll bet every reporter who misread this story would recognize advertising from one checkoff program or another.
Hey there Tim, glad to see you are back. There is no such thing as too many cookbooks. lol
How can a person keep up with all things we need to know to vote/act intelligently?
Dang.
Cathy, there is no way that we can, just as it is impossible to keep an eye on the myriad new rules and proposed legislation that will cripple us in every way possible. Enough to drive you crazy today.
Here in Australia, we are about to vote on whether a similar levy should be maintained, discontinued or increased. Hurts when you see it deducted from your milk cheque and times are tough but sometimes these investments stave off tough times too.
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