Annual National Cattlemen’s Beef Association Convention Underway

Cattle producers are convening in San Diego, California for the 2016 Cattle Industry Convention and the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association Trade Show this week.

Outgoing President Phillip Ellis looks back at his tenure of leadership with NCBA. At the end of 2015, retaliations by Mexico and Canada were eminent over the U.S. mandatory Country-of-Origin meat labeling law. Getting Congress to repeal COOL, Ellis says was beneficial to the industry…
“Yeah, that’s really in the trade arena, and that was an issue that had become disruptive to our markets, and we were facing retaliatory tariffs in the billion dollar range…billion with a ‘b’, and so it would further disrupt the markets and again lower the price to us out on the ranch, so with the repeal of COOL we’ve eliminated that as a trade barrier, so now we can look forward to positive issues of trade like TPP.”
As for 2016, he says fighting the Environmental Protection Agency’s Waters of the U.S. rule will be the top priority for NCBA…
“We have participated in litigation, and currently implementation of the rule has been stayed by injunction from court on one of the other actions, but that could go away at any time, so we need to have that dealt with.  So, we will continue to pursue litigation legislation to try and withdraw that rule.”
NCBA interim CEO Kendal Frazier says a hot topic for producers attending the convention this year is volatility in the cattle markets. Speaking today will be Terry Duffy, president and CEO of the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, will address producers concerns regarding the markets…

“There’s a lot of concern about what’s happening in the cattle futures market, a lot of volatility, we think a lot of that is based on electronic trading.  We’ve written a letter to the CME expressing some of our concerns, and Mr. Duffy is going to address that letter on Friday afternoon.

The futures markets are really important to cattlemen because that’s how they manage risk, and if they can’t manage risk they can’t access capital.  So, it’s extremely important that the futures markets work as a risk management tool.”

He says the letter sent to the CME stemmed from concerns raised by cattlemen…

“We’re hoping that Mr. Duffy can address some of those concerns and we can find solutions to that.  That’s what we want to be about, finding solutions.  And providing tools for cattlemen so they can prosper in this business.”

The Cattle Industry Convention and NCBA Trade Show continue through Saturday. It is the largest annual gathering of the beef industry.