(Washington, DC) — All six members of Iowa’s congressional delegation are sponsoring legislation to give independent cattle producers more information about cattle prices, but they have just ten days to convince colleagues it should be included in a must-do bill. The Livestock Mandatory Reporting Act must be reauthorized by December 3rd and Senator Chuck Grassley is the lead sponsor of a plan to also force disclosure of the prices paid in private sales of cattle being raised and sold under contracts with a meatpacker. On Monday, Grassley said, “So when a person gets on the phone or the Internet to negotiate a price with a packer, they’ve got some database, knowing that today, I ought to be able to get within this range of price for my cattle.” The plan Senators Grassley and Joni Ernst along with Representatives Cindy Axne, Randy Feenstra, Ashley Hinson, and Mariannette Miller-Meeks are co-sponsoring in the U-S House would force meatpackers to disclose how many cattle they plan to slaughter each day for at least the next two weeks.
