Legislation Introduced Creating Cattle Contract Library

Ranking member of the Livestock and Foreign Agriculture Subcommittee Dusty Johnson (R-SD) and Representative Henry Cuellar (D-TX) introduced the bipartisan Cattle Contract Library Act of 2021 (H.R. 5609). If enacted, the bill would create a library for cattle contracts within the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) Agriculture Marketing Services.

The bill instructs the USDA to regularly update the library in a user-friendly format and provide weekly or monthly reports as applicable. The Cattle Contract Library will publish information related to the type of contract and its duration, all summary information, the base price, the total number of committed cattle sold to the packer each week, and other relevant information.

The proposed legislation makes it a violation for any packer to willfully fail or refuse to provide the USDA Secretary with accurate information or to comply with any other requirement.

The House Agriculture Committee passed the legislation the day following the resolution being introduced and has been praised by numerous national groups. KCA supports many of the provisions in the legislation, and supports comprehensive enforcement of the price reporting requirements set forth by Livestock Mandatory Price Reporting.