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Executive Director’s Report

published: July 9th 2010
by: Bill Hyman
source: ICA Of Texas

Who speaks for the cattle producer? At ICA we believe we do. At each of the many other local, state and national livestock groups, they each think they speak for the cattle producer. When you get down to it, we all do, but every group thinks they do it best. There have been many issues over the past few years, and each group had its own answer. ICA didn’t always get our way, but if you look back, most of the time we were right on target. When the smoke finally cleared, our way was the right way.
    ICA strongly supported COOL, and today we have mandatory country-of-origin labeling in place. Contrary to the predictions of the COOL opponents, the beef industry is still strong and viable. The few folks who import Mexican steers instead of buying native-born cattle are not happy, but there is still a market for their cattle and stronger demand for ours. It’s obvious that the consumers prefer U.S. beef, as evidenced by the prevalence of our beef in the retail meat counters at major chains like H.E.B.
    We fought for voluntary animal identification and opposed mandatory animal I.D. as we watched other groups greedily jump on the band wagon to receive USDA payments, initiate fee-driven, “confidential” computer databases, and promote the sale of electronic gadgets to make us “safer.” Well, ICA was on target once again, and today we still have a voluntary system.
    We asked for a simple trichomoniasis program to protect our cow herds from trich-infected bulls, a program that would not harm the industry, and again, we were successful. We worked against the Trans Texas Corridor while it swallowed up private property without regard to landowner rights. We fought for eminent domain reform to stop the loss of our ranch lands, and we were successful on both fronts.  When we went to bat for the South Texas ranchers fighting the fever tick, USDA loosened the purse strings and began to adequately fund the border program, and we now are making headway against the tick. 
    Several years ago we passed a resolution asking for clearer separation of the Cattlemen’s Beef Board, the Federation of State Beef Councils and all contracting agencies and associations. It has taken time, but the progress is occurring now as ICA and other groups are fighting to remedy this situation. 
    Lately, we were called a “vocal” group by the organizations opposed to our call for a clearer separation of contractors, policy-driven organizations and your Beef Checkoff funds.  At first, it made us mad, but if that is what it takes to be successful in making change for the betterment of our ranchers, then we guess you can call us “vocal.”