A proposal to restructure the nation’s largest beef cattle organization is generating some controversy.

Representatives of the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association (NCBA) and the Federation of State Beef Councils met with USDA officials today to discuss NCBA’s proposed governance structure and held a conference with reporters afterward to review the outcome of the meeting.

U.S. Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack sent a letter last week to Illinois cattle producer and NCBA President Steve Foglesong expressing the need for additional clarity regarding the proposed governance structure. “The effort NCBA has undertaken to change our governance structure has received an awful lot of attention, more than I thought we would going into this,” said Foglesong. “I’m going to take that as a compliment – people really do care about NCBA and what we do.”

Steve says NCBA’s goals are to fuel producer profitability by building and protecting beef demand and to preserve producers freedom to operate without excessive government intervention. “I believe our proposed governance model helps deliver on these goals by increasing producer input into our programs and policies and by enabling quicker decision making through a 29 member board, rather than our current 274 member board.”

Vilsack expressed concern that the proposed structure would “weaken the firewall between policy and checkoff funded activities, thereby jeopardizing the Beef Checkoff program and set a bad precedent for checkoff programs in general.” Foglesong and Scott George, NCBA Federation Division Chair and Wyoming dairy/beef producer addressed each of Vilsack’s concerns one at a time in answer to questions from reporters.

“The problem we’re having here is a break down in understanding what ‘firewall’ is,” said George. “We believe the firewall is an accounting firewall and that has been strictly enforced and will continue to be strictly enforced.”

Foglesong stressed their transparency throughout the restructuring process. “This is a draft,” Foglesong said. “That’s one of the reasons that it passed by 94 percent at the convention. We made changes and we listened to people.”

Industry representatives will be meeting with other groups who have concerns about the restructuring this week.

Listen to or download the entire press conference here: