USDA has spent many months looking at and analyzing two major events that shook the cattle markets. It all started last fall when a packing plant fire broke out in Kansas. Then, the impacts of COVID-19 pandemic were felt by cattle producers when the slaughter pace slowed. As a result, the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association has created framework for fed cattle price discovery. This approach lays out a plan to increase negotiated trade and incentivize each of the major packers’ participation in such negotiated trade. The framework explains in detail what NCBA is calling the “75% Plan,” which is designed to provide negotiated trade and packer participation benchmarks for the industry to strive toward. A Subgroup will evaluate the weekly negotiated trade information for each of the USDA Agricultural Marketing Service’s cattle feeding reporting regions on a quarterly basis in arrears. Eventually, the Subgroup will include in its evaluation an analysis of packer participation data, but this information is not yet published under Livestock Mandatory Reporting. Review the full plan here.
