Southeast AgNet recently sat down with Clint Richardson, NCBA Division Region 2 representative for Florida. Here is what Richardson had to say about the recent NCBA summer business meeting.
“I would accentuate the importance of the summer business meetings related to the checkoff process, right, how we utilize those dollars, and it was a great experience and something that I take very, very seriously,” said Richardson.
“The opportunity to, in those meetings, that’s where the contractors seek the checkoff dollars and bring their authorization requests before the research and the promotion and all the committees of the National Cattlemen’s that we have there, and we were really able to really dig into those requests and to those opportunities to look at the authorization requests to move demand forward and how are we going to do research. It’s just a great process to be able to ask questions, really dig in and go through those proposals with a fine-toothed comb, and then, you know, they’re going to go away and come back in a few weeks with that, with hopefully some of the changes that we suggested and tighten up those requests to go before the Beef Promotion Operating Committee in September for final approval for final funding decisions. And so, I would hope that they would really know that there is a voice there, that as the Region Vice President, that I have the opportunity to really be a part of that whole process, kind of fine-tuning and pushing those, the most important initiatives and requests forward so that we can continue to drive demand and really be a sector, I would say, of very important dollars, obviously,” Richardson added.
“So just to know that there’s somebody there that understands, that has a voice, that they have a voice through me to be able to be a part of that really important process with figuring out where those dollars should go,” said Richardson.
Audio Reporting by Elizabeth Sanders for Southeast AgNet.