As hearings have been happening on Capitol Hill concerning the future and the need for cattle market reformation, other tools to help farmers are closer to coming online.
The Cattle Contract Library is a million-dollar pilot program that is aimed at giving producers more information on the value of cattle contracts that are reached with packers, thereby giving producers information to negotiate better prices if they can.
USDA AMS Chief Bruce Summers told Ranking Ag Appropriations Republican John Hoeven that there is a possibility that they could be delivering the product almost a full ten months ahead of schedule.
This pilot program could become permanent if Congress finds a version of legislation moving through both the House and the Senate to address the cattle marketing concerns. These bills are the ones starting to be debated and questioned in the respective Ag Committee Chambers.
However, this could still face an uphill battle. While the legislation has the approval or sponsorship of many ag-state lawmakers, there is disagreement among the cattle industry itself. While on one hand, you have producers who are saying packers have a stranglehold and an unfair advantage in the cattle market; you also have producers saying that the way cattle were marketed twenty and thirty years ago is no longer profitable. They argue that many of those who are fighting for a government mandate are the ones who have not adapted to the changes, and are now asking the government to mandate the program for everybody.
These are just the first steps towards a debate that may change not only the way products are marketed in the cattle industry, but maybe in all of agriculture and even beyond. If the government steps in and dictates how a market should be run and how supply and demand in a free-market system have no bearing, then there may be a change in what we know as the free-market system.
This could set a precedent that takes a hold of the economy overall. Because if you can give the government control over one marketplace, what will stop them from just taking over more?
Cattle producers do not want to see anybody fail, but they also want to see the modernization of the system trickle through to all producers. There is also an agreement that if there has been bad acting on the part of large meatpackers, there should be consequences. The frustrating part is that the Department of Justice launched an investigation almost two years ago, and we still have no hint at any outcomes.
