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Idaho Bean Commission seeks assessment increase; committee votes to print request
Summary
The Idaho Bean Commission asked the Senate Agriculture Committee to print RS 31817 to raise its checkoff assessment from 12¢ per hundredweight to 16¢ (with future authorization to 24¢); the committee voted to print the request.
Andy Wolf Wybie, executive director of the Idaho Bean Commission, told the Senate Agriculture Committee the commission seeks RS 31817 to raise its assessment on beans at first point of sale. "Currently, our assessment sits at 12¢ per hundred weight with it being split 8¢ from the grower and 4¢ from the bean dealer warehouse," Wolf Wybie said. "The board voted unanimously to increase that assessment 4¢ to make them both 8¢. So we'd like to increase it to 16 [¢] currently, and then with authorization in the future... to raise it to a complete 24 [¢]."
Wolf Wybie said the commission has not requested an assessment increase since 1992 and that inflation and rising costs have reduced the commission’s purchasing power for trade promotion and research. She described the commission as self-funded by a checkoff assessment and said it does not receive general fund money.
The presenter described recent commission priorities: funding entomology research at the University of Idaho Parma Research and Station, supporting trade missions to Latin America, and stepping up seed-health testing after export issues in the European Union. Committee discussion was limited to a motion to print the request: Senator Blaylock moved to print RS 31817 and Senator Van Orden seconded; the committee approved by voice vote.
If passed into law, the bill would change the commodity assessment split between growers and dealers; supporters said the added revenue would fund research, trade promotion and seed-health testing.
