Cattle Price Discovery Act
The Cattle Price Discovery and Transparency Act of 2023 (Grassley-Fischer bill) will mandate cattle purchases on the negotiated or cash markets and restrict the use of alternative marketing arrangements (AMAs). AMAs are grid or formula pricing, or contracts between packers and feeders that provide both parties with consistency and predictability.
Reasons Meat Institute opposes the Cattle Price Discovery and Transparency Act of 2022:
- It inserts the federal government into the beef and cattle free markets.
- It prevents livestock producers from marketing their cattle as they see fit.
- It limits the use of AMAs, which have improved beef quality, consumer demand and sustainability.
- Economists from the Agricultural and Food Policy Center at Texas A&M University found that the Grassley-Fischer bill could cost producers even more than an earlier estimate of $112 million over five years ($50 a head on 2.3 million head).
- The economists at Texas A&M also found the mandate would benefit Iowa producers at the great expense of producers in other regions: producers in the Texas-Oklahoma-New Mexico region, Kansas, and Nebraska would shoulder the vast majority of the costs, while the Iowa-Minnesota region would escape relatively unscathed.
