06.24.21

Hoeven Advancing Efforts to Improve Transparency, Price Discovery & Market Access for Ranchers

Senator Urged Senate Agriculture Committee Leadership to Hold Hearing Examining Fairness & Competition in Cattle Markets

WASHINGTON – At a hearing of the Senate Agriculture Committee this week, Senator John Hoeven continued his efforts to ensure access to fair and competitive cattle markets for ranchers. Hoeven worked with Committee Chairwoman Debbie Stabenow (D-Mich.) and Ranking Member John Boozman (R-Ark.) to hold the hearing, the first one addressing these issues since 2019, in order to help advance solutions to improve transparency and price discovery in the beef industry.

The hearing included cattle producers and agricultural economists. Among other priorities, Hoeven highlighted legislation he recently helped introduce to:

  • Expand ranchers’ ability to provide more locally-produced meat to consumers by utilizing custom slaughterhouses.
  • Require a minimum of 50 percent of a meat packer’s weekly volume of beef slaughter be purchased on the open or spot market. This legislation is sponsored by Senators Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) and Jon Tester (D-Mont.).

“I appreciate Chairwoman Stabenow and Ranking Member Boozman for working with us to hold this hearing, as it serves to better inform our efforts to improve cattle markets to the benefit of both producers and consumers,” said Hoeven. “There are real issues of transparency and price discovery that we are working to address in the beef industry. This discussion was an important step in identifying and advancing solutions to ensure our ranchers have access to fair and competitive markets.”

Hoeven also discussed opportunities to make reforms to Livestock Mandatory Reporting (LMR) and other potential programs, like a cattle contract library, to help improve price discovery, while giving ranchers more options for selling and marketing their products.

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