Dr. Craig Morris, the deputy administrator with USDA’s Agricultural Marketing Service expects changes to mandatory price reporting to take effect this fall.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture has had a market news reporting function for over 100 years publishing information collected voluntarily from packers but in 1999, for livestock and meat products, it became mandatory for processors to make prices available to USDA.
Dr. Morris says currently, mandatory prices reporting covers live cattle, hogs and sheep, beef meat, pork meat, sheep meat and imported sheep meat. Livestock mandatory reporting dates back to 1999, when they passed the first law and reauthorized every five years.
“The last reauthorization was September 30 of 2015, and in that particular reauthorization Congress directed us to make a few direct final changes on the lamb side and then proposed some changes on both the lamb and swine side,” he said. “For swine there are really two major classes of proposed changes. One will provide more depth to the data that we’re publishing in our morning and afternoon hog report so that there are more trades that fall into those two reports. That way, by having more data in there, that data is more representative of current market conditions.”
Morris says the second change is creating new purchase type categories so that we can more discreetly publish the data that producers are seeing so that they understand better, for the different kinds of purchase types what’s more representative of what they are doing so they understand the value of their particular livestock for the kind of sales or purchases that they are doing.
Dr. Morris says the comment period on the proposed rule has closed and there were no comments in opposition to proposals on the swine side. They’ve drafted and submitted for final reviews prior to publication which he is optimistic will happen and that it will be implemented by this fall.
Speaking of the Americans, George Matheson, chair of Manitoba Pork says the World Pork Expo in Des Moines, Iowa always offers representatives of the province’s pork industry an opportunity to discuss issues of mutual concern with their U.S. counterparts and to learn more about the latest available technology.
Taking part in World Pork Expo for the past 10 years, that participation has allowed representatives the chance to meet with producers generally and specifically Iowa Board Members to discuss the latest issues within the pork industry and to look at the latest pork production equipment.
“Because we’re both exporting nations when it comes to pork, the Trans-Pacific Partnership is of great interest to us and we would like both of our respective countries to sign on and ratify the agreement as quickly as possible to make sure that we’re all on the same level playing field when it comes to international trade,” he said. “Foreign animal disease is always an issue and how we can keep our countries biosecure. Also for us, we’re interested in constructing more feeder barns in Manitoba so looking at the latest in construction equipment and methods for putting up substantial but inexpensive barns is of great interest to us and it’s the best show in the world when it comes to pork equipment.”
Matheson says the veil of secrecy, if there ever was one, has been lifted and relations among Canadian and U.S. pork producers are very good. Attending World Pork Expo and the Pork Congresses in January in both Minnesota and Iowa have allowed the development of face to face relations.
“And what we’ve discovered is we’re an integrated industry with similar problems and challenges and producers on the two sides of the border are working at this together,” he added. •
— By Harry Siemens
