The Canada Beef Working Group is waiting on provincial organizations to ratify recommendations made by the group early in January to create a single national organization for beef marketing activities.Canada Beef, as the new organization would be known, would consolidate the Canada Beef Export Federation, the Beef Information Centre and the Canadian Beef Cattle Research, Market Development and Promotion Agency.Brad Wildeman, co-chair of the CBWG, said the combined organization would improve the current situation by conserving funds from check-off fees that come from producers, who have been reducing herds. In addition, the consolidation would preserve legacy funds of $80 million from the Alberta and federal governments that were pledged in 2005 to the industry to help it recover from the mad cow situation. That funding is due to run out in another four years.ìThere's going to be a lot less money (available) and so we thought Ö since these organizations were formed in the '80s, there was never really a serious sort of review of them to see if they were the most effective and efficient organizations we could have,î Wildeman said.The CBWG's mandate was to look at what the combined organization should look like and present that back to the various organizations that fund and support the industry.The new organization would save about $1.3 million in administrative, governance and staffing costs per year, with potentially more opportunities to save money, which can be plowed back into programs that Wildeman said are giving producers excellent information.Producers will benefit from the merged organizations because it will speak with one voice for the Canadian beef industry, Wildeman said.ìThere's going to be a single organization whose sole focus is to get the most value for Canadian beef Ö rather than two.îEach of the provinces that funds check-offs makes allocations of the money it gets from producers to fund various research and other programs.ìI think it's difficult for producer groups to really understand where that money is best spent. There's a lot of dynamics in the marketplace today; we have markets that are opening, we have markets that are still closed.îWith one organization merging both North American and overseas marketing, it becomes much easier to shift priorities as opportunities arise, Wildeman said.ìRestructuring really allows for the best people to work on the right projects at the right time, (for) the money to flow in the right places, and to spend as little money as we can on Ö funding and administrative things,î he said.Industry organizations in Ontario, Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Alberta have all approved of the new marketing structure while B.C. producers will be meeting this week to decide. Other organizations will be meeting in the next few weeks.Wildeman said if everything falls into place, Canada Beef could be operational by the end of June.
