Nebraska Cattlemen appreciates the continued focus on price transparency in live cattle markets with the introduction of legislation in the U.S. House that mirrors Senator Deb Fischer’s call to establish a cattle contract specification library. The House bill, led by Rep. Dusty Johnson (R-SD) and co-sponsored by sixteen House members, including Nebraska Representative Adrian Smith, calls for a cattle contract specification library within USDA’s Agricultural Marketing Service (AMS).
“Cattle markets are complex. There is no single silver bullet solution to address the many challenges present within the fed cattle marketing arena at this point.” William H Rhea, III – President, Nebraska Cattlemen. “We appreciate the work of Representatives Johnson and others, but we cannot stop here.”
Decreasing levels of market transparency and the essential work of price discovery being done by fewer and fewer market participants have been headline issues for Nebraska Cattlemen members for the greater part of a decade. Expanding access to benchmark USDA-AMS price and volume data for all types of cattle purchases is an essential ingredient to helping Nebraska Cattlemen members negotiate more confidently for competitive prices. While creating a contract library is a first step in expanding market transparency, continued focus must also remain on expanding processing capacity, addressing labor shortages, and increasing price discovery to truly address the live cattle market concerns of Nebraska Cattlemen members.
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