It's important to know where you're going, but it's also important to know where you've been.  At a time when beef is selling for near historical levels in many markets, Terry Quam, Secretary/Treasurer of The Cattlemen's Beef Board and Wisconsin beef producer, wants to refresh memories on why the beef checkoff program has been so critical.

Quam, who owns and operates Marda Angus in Lodi along with his family, has served on the CBB board for four years.  Each year he says, he's learned something more about the important investments that are being made today to sustain beef producers for the future.  He's also quick to remind growers that the path to today's checkoff was full of challenges.

According to the National Cattlemens Beef Association website, splinter groups helped inspire what growers see working today.

It notes that in the 1860s and '70s, cattle ranching in the United States was a crude industry at best. Fence-cuttings, cattle rustling and conflicting claims for land rights were mortal problems for homesteaders and livestock grazers. 

A "packer monopoly" kept market information from cattle producers, while railroads, which were quickly springing up, charged exorbitant rates for shipping cattle. 

It was clear that cattle producers needed to band together to have strength in combating these issues. Emerging state level organizations were adequate for dealing with cattle thieves and ownership issues, but not for trade and governmental issues. Cattlemen needed to think bigger - on a national level. 

After several failed attempts, a national cattle producers organization became a reality in 1898, when two members of the Livestock Committee of the Denver Chamber of Commerce and Trade Board called a National Stock Growers Convention Jan. 25-27, 1898, in Denver, Colorado. Charles F. Martin and John W. Springer had a plan to form "an association of associations" which would represent every branch of the livestock industry, from cattle to hogs, to sheep, chickens, goats and horses. 

More than 2,000 convention attendees heard three days of discussion on interstate trade, public lands and packer trusts. However, the main order of business at the first convention was the formation of the National Live Stock Association (NLSA) of the U.S. 

After one year of operation, the infant association was off to a good start. Springer, who was elected the first association president, reported that NLSA had 53 organizational members, represented 5,000 producers with 9 million head of stock and had a combined investment of $300 million. In addition, NLSA initiated two activities that would endure through the coming century - legislative lobbying and industry-wide communication through a national newsletter. 

After several early years of growth, the National Live Stock Association and the industry fell on hard times. Prices plummeted while rail charges jumped. Range wars and public lands battles continued to divide members whose support waned. Splinter groups began peeling away from the national association. 

In 1901, one such splinter group formed the American Cattle Growers Association whose purpose was to solely represent cattle producers, particularly against sheep growers. Disputes between cattle growers and sheep growers over grazing rights had become so heated that bands of cattlemen often sought to wipe out the sheepmen through intimidation and the eventual clubbing or shooting of sheepherders and their flocks. 

Beef producers would struggle against their "necessary sacrifices" battling both weather and global events like World War II. 

The American National Livestock Association celebrated its 50th anniversary in 1947. The industry was beginning to recover from World War II and producers were glad to be free from price controls and rationing. ANSLA challenged the federal government once again on "non-war issues," such as public lands, tariffs and the control of foot-and-mouth disease. 

Four years later, ANSLA members voted to change their name to the American National Cattlemen’s Association (ANCA). That same year, the Korean War exploded and for the third time in approximately 40 years, the industry faced problems of supply and demand, the black market and price controls. These factors, coupled with low prices and drought in the Great Plains lead to the “Great Cattle Bust of 1953.” Cattlemen accepted government aid without the customary battles. 

Beef producers knew they could not rely on government aid – nor did they want to. Jay Taylor, ANCA president from 1954 to 1955, was an advocate of self-help through beef promotion. Taylor initiated the National Beef Council and led the charge to pass a nationally legislated checkoff.

Seven checkoff bills failed in Congress. All were opposed by the National Live Stock and Meat Board and the American Farm Bureau Federation, both of which favored generic red meat promotion.

The industry was at odds. The National Beef Council relied on voluntary contributions, while the Meat Board continued to collect from producers through markets. By 1956, 17 state beef councils had formed in support of the National Beef Council. However, emotional and economic strain was too great and in 1963 the groups compromised and formed the Beef Industry Council (BIC) of the National Live Stock and Meat Board. The BIC took the lead for national beef promotion.

President Nixon also played a big role in beef industry economics in the early '70s. He imposed the first peace-time wage and price controls in U.S. history. His 1973 price freeze on beef inadvertently caused "The Wreck" - a severe crash in the cattle market and dramatic herd reduction.

ANCA held, however, that the only way for the industry to get out of "The Wreck" was to sell more beef. Thus came several new attempts to pass a national uniform checkoff for cattle. A beef checkoff program was finally passed on its third attempt, more than 10 years later, in 1986.

The second merger for the national association occurred primarily because - in the words of W.D. Farr, ANCA president in 1970 - "I had observed in the livestock industry a tendency to form a new organization for each new problem or issue... all financed separately but all financed by cattlemen." The American National Cattlemen's Association and the National Livestock Feeders Association consolidated into one strong national organization in 1977, the National Cattlemen's Association (NCA).