Agricultural News
Oklahoma Pork's Kylee Deniz discusses New Mandatory Pork Checkoff Rate Change
Fri, 18 Mar 2022 10:40:13 CDT
This month, pork producers gathered in Louisville, Kentucky, to focus on many topics challenging the pork industry for their Pork industry forum. Oklahoma Pork Council Executive Director Kylee Deniz was on hand at the forum with six other Oklahomans.
Senior Farm Director Ron Hays caught up with Deniz at the Oklahoma Youth Expo, and She said the mood for the pork industry is positive, "This is the first time we've gotten together as an industry since Covid, and our pork producers were just excited to get together and have that community."
Deniz said the industry has learned several things while grappling with the Covid 19 pandemic. With supply chain challenges and labor shortages that the industry faced, Deniz said producers were focused on the decisions that would prepare them for a better future. One of the big decisions coming out of the pork Forum was approving a change in the mandatory Pork Checkoff rate.
The current rate of $0.40/$100 value per live animal will change to $0.35/$100 no later than Jan. 1, 2023, representing a 12.5% reduction in the Checkoff rate.
The resolution - offered initially by Minnesota, Indiana, and Ohio but joined in support by Iowa, Nebraska, Illinois, Montana, and South Dakota - passed the delegate body with 94% of shares voting in favor.
The resolution reflects a recommendation of the Pork Industry Vision Task Force - a group of 19 industry leaders from the NPB, NPPC, and various states that met to discuss the U.S. pork industry's current structure and resource needs to ensure its long-term success.
Deniz said that the group has been talking about this change for a while, "They've met a couple of times to talk about how that funding mechanism needs to be going forward and ultimately that led to a vote at the national pork industry session." Deniz said they would translate that 5 cents into the voluntary program, "Just thinking about the pork Act or the pork checkoff versus the National Pork Producers Council, the Strategic Investment Program. Those dollars were removed from the mandatory checkoff that is promotion, education, and research and into the voluntary side. So we can work on issues, and there are a ton of them! Pick the state; pick the type of issue. And so by moving that five cents into the voluntary space, we can work on issues more strategically."
Deniz said African Swine Fever will always be top of mind to Pork producers, "I think that we will continue to focus on preparedness. And want to be of the mindset that it doesn't get here. But in the event it does, it changes things for us. So I don't know that I will have an evening where I sleep better, thinking that African swine fever is not a threat. And I think that that's what many pork producers think as well. So we've always got to be mindful and prepared. And it's African swine fever plus other little diseases that keep us up at night."
Other issues brought up at the forum include things other industries are grappling with as well, including high fuel costs, input costs, labor shortages, and more, and Deniz said Oklahoma pork producers are thinking about how to combat those as well, "several of the different input costs that it takes us to put to put a pound of pork on consumers plate, but there are other things like people; wages are higher, and there's more demand from our folks that work in our industry. And so it continues, but I think that we're really proud of what we do. We're really proud of putting the safe, affordable protein on consumers' plates. And that's the mindset that pork producers in Oklahoma have or producers across the country have, and we're going to stick with that."
To hear Ron and Kylee's complete discussion click or tap below.
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