Sen. Charles Grassley (R-IA) stopped in Ames to promote legislation aimed at improving price discovery in the cattle industry at the Iowa Cattle Industry Headquarters in Ames, Iowa, Monday.

The Cattle Market Discovery and Transparency Act is co-sponsored by Grassley with bipartisan support. Recently introduced to Congress, the bill will prohibit the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) from citing confidentiality as a justification to not report contracts and will instead require the USDA to report on all Livestock Mandatory Pricings (LMR) in a way that maintains privacy. The bill will also require the USDA to maintain a public library of marketing contracts that ensures confidentiality between packers and farmers. 

Other provisions in the bill include the USDA being allowed to periodically modify regional minimums following a public notice and comment period and cattle carcass weights being required to be reported more frequently. According to a provision in the bill, the Act will have to pass a cost-benefit analysis two years after passage to ensure the law is working as intended. 

These new changes will ensure transparency between farmers and packers, Grassley said.

Grassley, joined by President-elect of the Iowa Cattlemen Association Bob Noble, current Iowa Cattlemen’s Association President Dick Godfrey, and Iowa Cattlemen Association member Brad Kooima, addressed local media in Ames to stress the urgency of the bill and why they believe it is needed for Iowa farmers. 

During the pandemic, retail prices of meat increased, according to the USDA. Grassley said it is unfair that packers are making great profits while farmers are losing money or are struggling to break even.

The North American Meat Institute announced its opposition to the legislation. According to a release on Nov. 9, the institute said the bicameral bill will have unintended harms on both producers and consumers. 

“Beef and cattle markets are dynamic. This fall prices cattle producers received for their livestock have risen without any government interference. In a rush to do ‘something,’ this bill would replace the free market with government mandates and harm those it is intended to protect: livestock producers,” Julie Anna Potts, President and CEO of the North American Meat Institute said according to the release.

In 1988, the Senate first introduced a bill to reform the inspection of meat and poultry in the U.S. In 1999 the Committee of Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry submitted a report to amend the Agricultural Marketing Act of 1946 to implement mandatory market reporting. Currently, the swine industry requires similar reporting to market prices.

Grassley said the North American Meat Institutes’ opposition is similar to their opposition from previous attempts to revise market practices. 

“[Meat packers] do not want any interference in the way they do business,” said Grassley. “They have a cozy network of four big packers who control 85 percent of the slaughter.”

Cattlemen member Kooima said the bill will provide transparency which will allow farmers to make better-informed decisions. Cattlemen Association President Godfrey said there needs to be a better distribution of income throughout the entire business. Godfrey thanked Grassley for his work on the legislation and said he was grateful the bill had all six Congressional delegation members’ bipartisan support.

“It’s hard to get six Iowans to agree on anything,” Godfrey said.

Grassley said the Department of Justice has yet to announce the findings from a year-old investigation into the cattle markets. The Department of Justice needs to do more to enforce antitrust laws in agriculture, said Grassley.