Iowa beef producers will soon get to vote on a proposal to institute a state beef checkoff program. Iowa Cattlemen’s Association communications director, Katie Olthoff, says they submitted the required paperwork for the referendum earlier this month. She says they needed to get 500 signatures from cattle producers and worked throughout the summer at various events and turned in more than 700 signatures.

The voting will begin next month. “Producers can request an absentee ballot if they would like starting in October. Then they can mail in those ballots any time throughout the month of November,” Olthoff says. “or if they prefer, producers can vote in person at their county extension offices on November 30th.”

The results of the vote would be known in mid-December. The Department of Agriculture and Land Stewardship has said they’ll be able to certify the vote on December 14th. “If it passes with a simple majority of 51 percent or more — collections will begin March 1st 2017. It will be a 50-cent per head state checkoff,” Olthoff explains.

She says the checkoff will be mandatory, but producers can request a refund. “We have really worked hard at the Cattleman’s Association to do our legwork and make sure that our producers have been able to give input into how the money would be spent,” according to Olthoff. “That includes a survey that we did last fall among our Cattlemen’s Association members. Eighty percent of the respondents were in support of a state beef checkoff and they outlined several uses for those funds.”

One use the survey supported is research. Olthoff says that is something that currently can’t be done with the federal checkoff, but they think it is important to help producers stay profitable into the future. Olthoff says the national fund has done a lot to promote the industry nationwide and this would be more state specific.

“Beef is What’s For Dinner is part the federal beef checkoff program. It’s been a great way to promote beef,” Olthoff says. “We want some more flexibility in our dollars and we want to enhance what the national programs are doing. That federal beef checkoff has been a-dollar-a-head since 1986. So adding an additional 50 cents at this point is something that several other states are doing. It’s something our Iowa cattle producers have been very interested in.”

The Iowa Cattlemen’s Association says it represents nearly 10-thousand beef-producing families and associated companies dedicated to the future of Iowa’s beef industry.

(Radio Iowa)

Iowa Senator Joni Ernst says she’s worried about the negative impact the E-P-A’s proposed rule on the herbicide atrazine could have on farmers. The agency proposes drastically cutting the amount of the chemical farmers could apply to fields. Ernst says science supports the safe use of atrazine in controlling broadleaf weeds, especially in corn crops. “For over 50 years, it has been proven as a safe and effective way of managing our cropland,” she says. “Over 7,000 studies that prove it is a safe and effective tool to keep in our toolbox.”

Atrazine is one of the most widely used herbicides in the U-S, but it was banned in the European Union in 2004, when groundwater levels exceeded limits. If the E-P-A’s proposed use level becomes the standard, analysts say the herbicide could no longer be used effectively and it would essentially represent a ban on the use of atrazine. Ernst says Congress would oppose that move.

“We will continue to apply pressure to the EPA,” she says. “We can involve other organizations and get people to push those public comments back to the agency. If they go to far, we can look at how do we work around this legislatively.”

The deadline to submit comments to EPA is October 4th. Without atrazine, some estimate farm input costs could increase by 30-to-60 dollars per acre. Farmers would also lose a valuable tool for weed management and conservation.

(Radio Iowa)