Livestock Mandatory Reporting Extension, Contract Library Bill Approved by House

The House on Dec. 8 passed a pair of livestock bills supported by the American Farm Bureau Federation. One of the measures would extend Livestock Mandatory Reporting, while the other would create a contract library for the beef cattle industry, similar to the pork industry catalog.

Livestock Mandatory Reporting was extended through mid-February in the most recently passed continuing resolution, but the measure passed this week in the House would extend LMR through the end of the 2022 fiscal year, which ends on Sept. 30, 2022.

The other livestock measure, the Cattle Contract Library Act of 2021 (H.R. 5609), would create a library for cattle contracts within USDA’s Agricultural Marketing Service. The bill would require packers to report terms of alternative marketing agreements between packers and producers, equipping ranchers with additional market data needed to make informed marketing and business decisions. The USDA library would provide producers with key details on cattle contracts, including the type and duration.

Both bills “provide crucial information, which is needed now more than ever as prices skyrocket at the grocery store while payments to farmers lag behind,” AFBF President Zippy Duvall said in a statement.

He continued, “We appreciate the leadership demonstrated by Agriculture Committee Chairman David Scott and the work of Representatives Dusty Johnson and Henry Cuellar. Their work on behalf of America’s ranchers helped create overwhelmingly bipartisan support for both pieces of legislation. We urge the Senate to work together in a similar fashion to ensure market fairness for farmers and ranchers working to put food on dinner tables across the country.”