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NCBA to ask Congress for financial assistance
In a major departure from previous policy, the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association (NCBA) will ask Congress to include financial assistance for cattle producers in the upcoming economic stimulus package.
“We’re in a whole new arena that we haven’t really experienced before, and I think the desperation of what we’re seeing in the marketplace has made a lot of producers kind of rethink their position on this,” says NCBA CEO Colin Woodall.
He tells Brownfield the crisis facing the cattle industry is “unprecedented”.
“When you look at how our industry survived through BSE, survived through 9/11, has survived through a lot of previous market issues, this kind of blows all of them away.”
Woodall says any assistance program must be carefully structured so that it doesn’t cause significant changes in the way people market their cattle.
AUDIO: Colin Woodall
