• PIERRE, S.D. (AP) -- Launched with great hopes and fanfare eight years ago, the South Dakota Certified Beef program has so far fallen short of its goal of helping farmers and ranchers sell state-branded beef as a premium product commanding higher prices.
• When then-Gov. Mike Rounds persuaded the 2005 Legislature to create the program, he envisioned a time when people across the nation and around the world would choose to pay more for steaks that carry a South Dakota seal of approval. He said codes on package labels could let buyers visit an Internet site to track the meat's origin, following it from a calf's birth to a feedlot and then a processor.
• But that hasn't happened, largely because South Dakota hasn't had a meatpacking plant operating at a large scale that would make processing economical, officials say. They hope the long-delayed Northern Beef Packers plant in Aberdeen will soon fill that void.
• In the first eight years of the program, only 16,386 cattle -- a tiny slice of a state herd that approaches 4 million head -- have been enrolled by farmers and ranchers. Only 500 have made it all the way through the program to be sold as meat from the program, mostly just within South Dakota from cattle processed by small custom meat lockers.
• Rounds, now running for the U.S. Senate, still thinks the program will succeed once the Aberdeen packing plant is running at full speed and more buyers demand verification of when and where cattle are born.
• "I think its time will come," Rounds said earlier this month.
• Todd Mortenson, a Hayes rancher who is still registered with the program, recalled sky-high expectations when the program was launched.
• "I keep hoping that something will come of it, that they'll get it revived," Mortenson said.
• Mortenson and others, including state Agriculture Secretary Lucas Lentsch, said that will require developing a large-scale packing plant in South Dakota that can process cattle economically. Mortenson said selling a few cattle at a time through the program isn't worth the effort because he needs to sell a truckload of 50 cattle at

(Continued on page 22)