A compromise bill announced this week takes another stab at addressing the price imbalance in the cattle industry. “We have a starting point here, but the Devil is in the details.”
Ethan Lane with the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association says the Cattle Market Price Discovery and Transparency Bill has several provisions included in it, but what it doesn’t include is US Senator Chuck Grassley of Iowa’s 50/14 rule. “Given this 300% structure, this lower number structure,” he says. “This would set a maximum mandatory cash trade limit by our math somewhere in the 30s.”
He tells Brownfield the original goal of the proposed legislation was to improve price discovery and increase cash trade.