Tom Harkin: “the Livestock Mandatory Reporting Act was enacted by Congress in 1999 to level the playing field for independent…”

“the Livestock Mandatory Reporting Act was enacted by Congress in 1999 to level the playing field for independent producers. This Act is important because it improves market transparency by requiring packers, processors, and importers to provide critical price, contracting, supply and demand information to USDA, which in turn creates price reports for livestock producers. Since the Livestock Mandatory Reporting program was implemented by USDA, I have heard repeated concerns from producers about the accuracy and overall transparency of the program. Since this law was due to sunset, to get as many facts as possible for purposes of reauthorizing this important law, Senator Grassley and I requested an audit by the Government Accountability Office (GAO) to evaluate the accuracy of the program. This GAO audit found numerous instances of limited transparency and lengthy lag times by USDA in actions to correct problems when packers failed to report or provide accurate information, and instances where USDA was excluding packer data in price reports but not making information about the exclusions available to the public. Thus far, USDA has provided very little information to Congress regarding USDA's implementation of the six recommendations made by GAO. In fact, USDA has known of many of the problems described by GAO since 2001, but failed to act.”