The USDA recently announced the results of a nationwide Beef Checkoff survey that they had done by the Gallup Organization. At the Beef Checkoff update session yesterday Gallup representative, Donna Kholpak, pictured here with Kenny Payne, USDA, gave a summary of the survey and answered questions.

I interviewed her right before the session. She said she was personally surprised with how open cattle producers were when they took the survey. She shares some of the findings with me in the interview like the the fact that 72 percent of those surveyed either strongly approve or somewhat approve of the Beef Checkoff program.

This was a survey that was required by the settlement of the lawsuit between the Livestock Marketing Association and the Beef Board. I think it’s interesting that the results of this very large sample size survey are pretty close to the results of the much smaller annual survey the Checkoff has done on its own. In fact, on some questions the USDA survey found higher producer approval!

Download and listen to Donna here: Donna Kholpak Interview (4 min. MP3 File)

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