Effort hopes to update how USDA collects pricing data

By CAROL RYAN DUMAS

Capital Press

Companion bills in the Senate and House to improve dairy product price reporting have passed out of their respective ag committees.

HR5852, introduced by Rep. Collin Peterson, D-Minn., chairman of the House Ag Committee, and S3656, introduced by Sen. Blanche Lincoln, D-Ark., chairman of the Senate Ag Committee, would require the secretary of agriculture to establish an electronic reporting system.

"We've felt for quite some time the more timely and transparent, the better it is for producers," said Michael Marsh, executive director of Western United Dairymen.

Mandatory electronic price reporting was included in the 2008 Farm Bill, but it was contingent on available funding at USDA. That funding was never available, so an electronic system was never established.

"The bills remove the stipulation that it's subject to available funding," said Charlie Garrison, lobbyist for dairy farm organizations.

"These bills make it clear, in no uncertain terms, that the USDA will have to do what it takes to establish dairy price reporting," National Milk Producers Federation President and CEO Jerry Kozak said in a press release.

Presently, USDA-NASS manually surveys processors for product pricing information on a weekly basis. The bills don't change the frequency or the products being reported; they only change how prices are reported, Garrison said.

"The main difference -- and it's not huge, but we do believe it's important -- is that the data will be reported more quickly, on Wednesday," said Chris Galen, National Milk's director of communications. "In essence, it provides real-time pricing."

The bills would require USDA to publish a report containing pricing information for the preceding week no later than 3 p.m. Eastern time every Wednesday, with implementation no later than one year after the legislation passes.

"This is a modest effort to modernize how USDA collects and distributes pricing information," Galen said. But "it provides greater assurances of the integrity of the dairy pricing system."

It's not about enhancing prices or changing how Federal Milk Marketing Order formulas arrive at the price of milk -- it's for greater clarity and transparency, he said.

It will also act as a good check on dairy trading at the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, Marsh said. That's the only daily market reporting currently taking place. Some in the industry pushed for USDA daily reporting, but that would have required another bill to amend the original price reporting legislation.

With Congressional recesses and elections, it will be a challenge for the balance of the year on getting the legislation through Congress, he added.

HR5852 has 20 cosponsors, and S3656 has 19. The bills also add mandatory price reporting of wholesale pork cuts.