The National Pork Producers Council (NPPC) has submitted comments on proposed reporting regulations for swine in the law requiring meat packers to report the prices they pay producers for animals.

The Livestock Mandatory Reporting Act was first approved in 1999 and amended and reauthorized last September. The program, administered by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), provides information on pricing, contracting for purchase and supply and demand conditions for livestock, livestock production and livestock products to producers, packers and other market participants.

“The mandatory price reporting law is an important tool that helps producers make business and production decisions,” states Jill Appell, NPPC president from Altona, IL.

The reauthorized price reporting law includes three enhancements to the pork reporting provisions:

• More sows are included in pricing reports to more accurately reflect the sales and prices paid in the sow market.
• Changes were made to the timing for data to help USDA with its workload and, thus, to increase report accuracy and efficiency; and
• USDA may publish price distributions for net prices to provide more information to better reflect market conditions.