050137 Sheep Industry Prepares to Vote on Lamb Checkoff

Hilger, MT -Greg Wichman wants people to eat more lamb and is willing to put his money where his mouth is.

The central Montana rancher is supporting a fee on sheep he sells to help promote an industry that is still recovering after being hit hard by years of poor prices, drought and stiff foreign competition.

"If you want to keep an industry going, you have to do certain things," said Wichman, who was ready to quit the business a few years ago and is now hoping to double his flock size to 800 sheep. "It's definitely a step I think we have to make."

Since 2002, the industry has paid a fee on sheep and lambs sold or purchased for slaughter. Those who oppose paying it can file for a refund. But beginning Jan. 31, producers, feeders and packers will decide, in a monthlong referendum, whether the national lamb checkoff will become mandatory and nonrefundable.

The vote comes at a time when checkoff programs for beef and other commodities are being challenged as unconstitutional by producers who say they shouldn't have to pay for advertising that they don't necessarily agree with.

But supporters, while mindful of the court challenges and potential implications for the lamb program, say the assessment is key to the industry's growth and insist that producers, seeing far better sheep and lamb prices than a few years back, can ill-afford to do away with the program - on their own - now.

"If the checkoff is voted down, it not only will be a setback in terms of actual promotion but will also have a psychological effect that I think would be fairly negative," said Bryce Reece, executive vice president of the Wyoming Wool Growers Association.

Producers defeated a checkoff program in their last vote, in 1996. Dena Hoff, an Eastern Montana rancher, was among those who opposed it.

"I just don't think that checkoffs always benefit the producer," she said. "I'm all for research and promoting products, but I want it to be fair and I want it to come back to the producers on the ground who took the risks."

Peter Orwick, executive director of the American Sheep Industry Association, said the vote didn't help ranchers and that it left the industry, which for decades had some kind of promotional funding, with little ability to promote its products against stiffening competition from foreign imports, particularly from Australia and New Zealand.

The industry sought import relief with the International Trade Commission, which determined that increased lamb imports posed a threat of "serious injury" to the U.S. industry.

That 1999 ruling also gave rise to efforts in the industry to devise a checkoff program that would not only better promote U.S. lamb and help boost demand but also draw broader support from producers.

The program about to be voted on was developed by USDA and industry representatives, including Maryland producer David Greene. Despite court challenges to other checkoff programs, Greene said they decided to move forward, believing possible risks associated with doing so were worth it.

"Many feel you have to pay to promote our product; it doesn't promote itself," he said.

Under the current lamb checkoff program, producers, feeders and exporters pay one-half cent a pound when they sell live sheep and lambs. Packers pay an additional fee of 30 cents per sheep and lamb purchased for slaughter.

The checkoff generates about $2.3 million a year for promotion, research and consumer education - efforts coordinated through the American Lamb Board, said Bo Donegan, executive director of the board.

Those efforts include television spots, touting the quality and ease of preparing lamb, and the recent campaign "American Lamb. From American Land," he said.

Reece is among those who believe the checkoff has contributed to the higher prices producers have seen on sheep and lambs over the past two years or so and that it's doing its job, even if it is not visible locally.

While supporters of the checkoff say they know of no widespread opposition to the fee and are optimistic of passage, they are still working to get out the vote.

"It's a significant issue for the industry," said Bob Gilbert, spokesman for the Montana Wool Growers Association. "It is an issue of whether there will be American lamb available in meat cases or whether there will not be."

Hoff, the Eastern Montana producer, said she hopes people vote, too - and reaffirm opposition to checkoff programs.

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