A bill is currently being held up in the US Senate that would bring price transparency and better practices to the beef industry.

US Senator Chuck Grassley tells Raccoon Valley Radio the Cattle Price Discovery and Transparency Act and the Meat Packing Special Investigator Act that got out of the Senate Agriculture Committee earlier this summer continues to be in a holding pattern from getting to the floor for a vote. Grassley says the bills would bring better transparency to the four biggest meat packers in the country that control 85-percent of the daily kill of beef and there’s not even shackle space to make it an even playing field for the smaller beef producer for fair cash price. 

Grassley points out another issue is delivery of beef to meatpackers which he says also boxes out independent producers.

“And then sometimes they can’t deliver for 30 days. Whereas these contracts between these big feedlots and the packers, if they don’t get to deliver in 14 days then the meatpackers have to pay for feeding the cattle. But not in Iowa, if you don’t deliver within 14 days and it goes for 30 days, you’re (the producer) going to pay for that. And so consequently it’s a very unfair situation. And I think it’s legitimate for the (federal) government to step in and say, ‘We want to know what a fair price is?’ And that’s when we know what the prices is not just in the Midwest but all over the country, in fact these contract prices.”      

Grassley adds he is working with the lead Democrat on the bill with Senator John Tester of Montana and Senator Deb Fisher from Nebraska to make a strong push to get these bills to the floor by the end of the year. A companion bill was also passed out of the House Agriculture Committee that Representative Randy Feenstra serves on, but it has yet to get to the House floor for a vote.