Pork Producers welcome House Ag vote on mandatory price reporting
By Agri-Pulse Staff
© Copyright Agri-Pulse Communications, Inc.
Washington, July 28 – The National Pork Producers Council applauded the House Agriculture Committee vote Wednesday to reauthorize the law requiring meat packers to report to USDA the prices they pay producers for animals.
The committee passed H.R. 5852, sponsored by panel Chair Collin Peterson (D-MN), to reauthorize for five years the Livestock Mandatory Reporting Act, which is set to expire Sept. 30. The committee bill also adds to the reporting law provisions requiring reporting of pork exports – by price and volume – and of wholesale pork cuts.
“We are very pleased that the Agriculture Committee approved legislation reauthorizing the mandatory price reporting law,” said NPPC President Sam Carney, a pork producer from Adair, Iowa. “The addition of export and wholesale cuts reporting will further help producers like me make business and production decisions.”
Companion Senate legislation, sponsored by Senate Agriculture Committee Chair Blanche Lincoln (D-AR) and Ranking Member Saxby Chambliss (R-GA) was introduced Tuesday.
“The Livestock Mandatory Reporting Act is what provides transparency and certainty in the livestock markets and allows competition to thrive,” Carney said, “not regulations restricting how I market my hogs and dictating how markets will work” – a reference to a proposed USDA rule on the buying and selling of livestock and poultry. That USDA proposal to amend the Packers and Stockyards Act has been roundly criticized, and USDA was blasted by lawmakers who charged that USDA wrote a rule without industry input which goes far beyond what Congress intended in the 2008 Farm Bill.
The last time the price reporting law was reauthorized, in September 2006,t hree enhancements to the pork reporting provisions were added to:
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Add more sows to the pricing reports to more accurately reflect the sales and prices paid in the sow market.
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Change the timing for data reporting to help USDA with its workload and increase report accuracy and efficiency.
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Allow USDA to publish price distributions for net prices to provide more useful information.
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