The Beef Board conducts surveys twice a year to gauge producers’ economic moods and their expectations of checkoff investments, as well as checkoff program familiarity, strengths or weaknesses. The survey, conducted by Aspen Media & Market Research, is funded with checkoff monies.  

Over the past five years, producer approval rates for the checkoff have remained steady, ranging from 70 percent to 73 percent. The proportion of producers who disapprove of the program has remained virtually the same in the past year, although disapproval ratings are trending down. Since January 2003, the producer disapproval rate has dropped 12 points—from 27 percent to the current 15 percent.

The top three checkoff –funded activities that producers described as “essential” to the beef industry were: continuing to foster consumer confidence in the safety of beef (62 percent); advertising beef to consumers (57 percent); and promoting U.S. beef in other countries (51 percent).

The survey also regularly asks producers their opinions on the short-term direction of cattle prices. In the winter survey, opinions were about 50-50 that prices would remain the same. However, the winter survey found only 21 percent of producers felt pessimistic about prices, compared to 31 percent who felt that way during the June 2006 survey. Eighteen percent expected higher prices, compared to 11 percent who felt that way in the June 2006.  

* The statistical margin of error for a sample of 1,225 respondents is + (-) 2.8 percentage points.