I bring up this subject of more money for the board stricty to encourage
some discussion and not to try to derail anything. As far as I know this
could be the best thing for the industry, but on the other hand this
extra penny for a small producer-packer like myself means about as much
as 5% of my net, which to me is worth some discussion. From what I
understand and please someone correct me If I'm wrong the industry
groups want to double the amount of money going to the board of which
one quarter of the total will go for research and the other three
quarters will go for promotion. I'm all for promotion I personally don't
need it, for me honey is the easiest thing in the world to sell but
maybe there is some trickel down effect that I'm not seeing so I give my
penny. But now it's going up one more penny a pound that's off the top
not off the profit like it should be. This extra penny was to go for
research which sounded good but now I hear that only one half of the new
money goes to reseach making three quarters for promotion, one quarter
for research. I have to admit I'm having some trouble with all this, the
big packers want more control of the board they want to get out of
paying up to a half if they are already spending on promotion and they
want money to check for adulturation. Most of the adulteration is coming
from imported honey let the importer at least pay for ruining my
business by bringing in cheap adulterated honey. From what I gather,
most of the promotion is going to General Mills ect. that are using
imported honey, let the importers pay for what they get. As far as
giving the importers more power on the board I don't know, what do you
think? Again I hope somebody out there can call me a fool and explain
why I should gladly vote this extra penny in.