Livestock Law Due for Renewal

Congress soon will consider renewing the Livestock Mandatory Reporting Act adopted in 1999. In a column by Stephanie Mercier, Senior Policy and Advocacy Adviser at Farm Journal Foundation, there is consensus in the industry that price reporting has worked.

The Act followed a fallout in hog prices in the late 1990s. The impetus for that collapse was a dramatic increase in the number of hogs produced under contract, which cut the number of hogs sold on the open market, hence public information on prices.

In Mercier’s blog, she cites an assessment by agricultural economists Clement Ward and Stephen Koontz of Oklahoma State University that says among the benefits of the Act have been price transparency; a truer reflection of market price variability; improved pricing accuracy; and more efficiency in the market. S