Sherrod Brown

02/06/2023 | Press release | Distributed by Public on 02/06/2023 13:15

Brown, Colleagues Introduce Cattle Market Reform Bill

WASHINGTON, D.C. - U.S. Senator Sherrod Brown (D-OH), member of the Senate Agriculture Committee and first Ohioan to serve on the committee in nearly 50 years, joined a group of bipartisan Senators to introduce the Cattle Price Discovery and Transparency Act of 2023. The legislation would restore transparency and accountability in the cattle market by establishing regional cash minimums and equipping producers with more market information, including permanently authorizing a cattle contract library.

"The big four meat packing corporations put profits over people and control more than 80 percent of the market which allows them to take advantage of hard-working, independent family farms in Ohio," said Brown. "This legislation is an important first step to reign in the abusive power of big multi-national corporations that control the marketplace. I look forward to working with my colleagues in the Senate to include this and other important reforms in the 2023 Farm Bill."

The Cattle Price Discovery and Transparency Act of 2023 would:

  • Require the Secretary of Agriculture to establish five to seven regions that encompass the continental U.S. and then establish minimum levels of fed cattle purchases made through approved pricing mechanisms which are purchases made through negotiated cash; negotiated grid; at a stockyard; and through trading systems where multiple buyers and sellers regularly can make and accept bids. These pricing mechanisms are transparent and will ensure robust price discovery.

· Establish a maximum penalty of $90,000 for mandatory minimum violations for covered packers. Covered packers are those who slaughtered five percent or more of the number of fed cattle nationally during the previous five years.

· Create a publicly available library of marketing contracts, mandating box beef reporting to ensure transparency, expediting the reporting of cattle carcass weights, and requiring packers to report the number of cattle scheduled to be delivered for slaughter each day for the next 14 days. The contract library would be permanently authorized and specify key details that it must include like the duration of the contract and provisions in the contract that may impact price such as schedules, premiums and discounts, and transportation arrangements.

Brown joined U.S. Senators Deb Fischer (R-NE), Ron Wyden (D-OR), Chuck Grassley (R-IA), Jon Tester (D-MT), Joni Ernst (R-IA), Mike Braun (R-IN), Tina Smith (D-MN), Cindy Hyde-Smith (R-MS), Steve Daines (R-MT), Bill Cassidy (R-LA), Ben Ray Lujan (D-NM), Richard Durbin (D-IL), Martin Heinrich (D-NM), Raphael Warnock (D-GA), Richard Blumenthal (D-CT), Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY), Cynthia Lummis (R-WY), Josh Hawley (R-MO), Mike Rounds (R-SD), John Kennedy (R-LA), and Pete Ricketts (R-NE) in introducing the legislation.

Full text of the legislation is available HERE.

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