NCBA’s Lane Weighs In on Market Transparency via LMR and Contract Library

There were a number of significant events for the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association (NCBA) in 2021 and its membership, says Ethan Lane, vice president of government affairs at NCBA.

Not the least of them are two pieces of legislation the U.S. House of Representatives passed this past week – the Livestock Mandatory Price Reporting and Cattle Contract Library Act.

He addressed both during an AgriTalk segment with Clinton Griffiths, host, on Tuesday. Listen here:

Livestock Mandatory Price Reporting

“Passage of the LMR is significant for cattlemen, as it’s a very valuable market transparency tool,” Lane says.

LMR was developed to facilitate open, transparent price discovery and provide all market participants, both large and small, with comparable levels of market information for slaughter cattle, swine, sheep, boxed beef, lamb meat, and wholesale pork.

Lane says David Scott (D-GA) has been a champion of the LMR program and introduced the legislation to authorize it for extension through Sept. 30, 2022.  The program currently is set to expire on Feb. 18, 2022.

The program gets its authority through the Livestock Mandatory Reporting Act of 1999, which must be reauthorized by Congress every five years.

The House voted 418 to 9 to advance the legislation to the Senate.

Cattle Contract Library Act
The Act would instruct the USDA Agriculture Marketing Service to establish a library for cattle contracts.

“This is one of those transparency tools that actually has pretty broad agreement in the cattle industry, as far as a tool in the toolbox goes, though not everyone likes it,” Lane says.

The bill would go through the Agricultural Marketing Act to ensure contract information is reported and published.

The library would be updated regularly and provide weekly and/or monthly reports.

The House passed the Cattle Contract Library Act with a vote of 411 to 13. It now goes to the Senate as a standalone bill.

The 2022 Outlook

Lane says one of the most positive things beef producers are seeing currently are better prices as 2021 wraps up.

“We’re seeing heavy demand, and a lot happier producers for what they’re getting for their calves this year than maybe last year or the year before,” he says. “Certainly, it’s not where it needs to be yet to be a fair percentage of the available beef dollar.”

Looking ahead, Lane says NCBA plans to continue to keep pressure on the Biden administration to deal with ranchers in a positive fashion.

“We’ve seen a lot different tone from the Biden ministration – as far as the value of grazing, the benefits of grazing and the climate conversation – than we ever saw from the Obama administration,” he says.

“I want to make sure that if they (the Democrats) get a real shellacking, for lack of a better description, in the midterm elections that the administration doesn’t run home to some of those radical environmental NGOs that have a much more negative view of grazing,” he adds. “We've made a ton of headway, and I don't want to see that eroded because of politics.”

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