Growers: Christmas tree program 'isn't a communist plot'

By MATEUSZ PERKOWSKI

Capital Press

Controversy over a checkoff program for Christmas trees has apparently thrown the future of the marketing effort into question.

As part of the program, recently approved by USDA, growers would be required to pay 15 cents per tree to help promote the crop.

About $2 million a year would be raised and aimed at helping farmers compete against artificial Christmas trees.

The announcement spurred an online furor among conservative bloggers that characterized the checkoff as a "new tax" on Christmas trees imposed by the Obama administration.

Conservative think tank Heritage Foundation was one group to jump on the bandwagon.

"The economy is barely growing and 9 percent of the American people have no jobs. Is a new tax on Christmas trees the best President Obama can do?" wrote David Addington, the group's vice president of domestic and economic policy.

Betty Malone, a tree farmer who spearheaded a campaign to adopt the checkoff, said she was taken aback by the misinformation about the program.

"It isn't a communist plot," she said. "It's how we help ourselves."

Amid the backlash against the checkoff, a spokesperson for the White House said the program will be postponed and revisited, according to the Associated Press.

Capital Press was unable to reach a spokesperson for USDA as of press time.

Malone pointed out that many agricultural commodities have similar programs overseen by the USDA.

"If mangoes have a checkoff, why can't we?" she said.

Fake trees have been taking market share from real trees for decades, necessitating a unified industry-wide marketing effort, said Malone, who farms near Philomath, Ore.

"At some point, you have to do something different," she said. "You can't keep doing the same thing and expect a different result."

The checkoff fees would be absorbed by farmers, much as they pay for other inputs involved in producing the crop, Malone said.

"The consumer shouldn't see that at all," she said.

The program was expected to begin generating funds from the 2011 harvest, said Malone.

The idea to create a mandatory checkoff program sprang from the industry's inability to sustain voluntary fundraising efforts. Such campaigns often were initially successful but then fizzled.

Under the new checkoff, farmers will be able to vote whether to keep the checkoff going after it's been in place for three years.

The proposal has been controversial within the Christmas tree industry, albeit for reasons entirely different from the recent online outrage.

In the years leading up to the USDA's recent approval, the practicality and regional fairness of the proposal provoked debate.

Farmers sell their Christmas trees in a variety of ways -- to retailers, directly to the public and through brokers. Without a set point for collections, imposing assessments on the Christmas tree industry will be a challenge.

That problem has caused some growers to be skeptical of the program.

Greg Rondeau, sales manager of Holiday Tree Farms -- a major grower based in Corvallis, Ore. -- said he's still not sure how the collection process would work.

He's also concerned about how the money will be spent.

Farmers in major tree growing areas generally sell into very specific geographic markets, Rondeau said.

For that reason, it would make more sense to launch a regional marketing effort rather than a blanket program for the entire country, he said.