Two proposals, two different solutions, no easy answer for cattle markets

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Two proposals, two different solutions, no easy answer for cattle markets

Two legislative proposals with two very different solutions have the same goal of fixing the cattle market but a pair of cattle groups disagree which is the best fix.

R-CALF CEO Bill Bullard says the Cattle Price Discovery and Transparency Act from Senators Deb Fischer and Chuck Grassley doesn’t’ address the cash market and allowing independent producers to gain access to the market. “That is a minimalist approach, and it would do little to nothing to improve the current challenges that cattle producers face.”

Bullard says it should be rejected outright. “And it is the new Booker bill that provides the comprehensive structural changes needed in our industry to restore the lost competition.”

Ethan Lane is with the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association and says legislation from Senator Corey Booker and Representative Rho Khanna shouldn’t be taken seriously. “I have a hard time thinking that this is going to detract support from any other serious proposal out there.”

And, he tells Brownfield, “There are a lot of different divergent opinions on these bills and there a lot of different cattle organizations and others working through those divergent options trying to find some common ground. This just seems to be all of the other ideas out there that didn’t have a home.”

Senator Cory Booker, a Democrat from New Jersey, and Representative Ro Khanna, a Democrat from California, announced the Protecting America’s Meatpacking Workers Act of 2021 on Monday.

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