Working With Livestock Industry To Provide Critical Market Intelligence

The Livestock Mandatory Price Reporting (LMR) Program was created to expand pricing information available to the livestock industry.  The data is collected and distributed by USDA’s Agricultural Marketing Service (AMS) through its USDA Market News division to provide market information for cattle, swine, lamb, and livestock products.

LMR encourages competition in the marketplace by vastly improving price and supply data, bringing transparency, breadth and depth to market reporting.  Through LMR, livestock producers and processors, retail food outlets, restaurants, exporters, and many other stakeholders receive critical market intelligence on a daily basis.  Literally thousands of business transactions every day rest on the outcome of LMR data.

The program gets its authority through the Livestock Mandatory Reporting Act of 1999, which must be reauthorized by Congress every five years.  The 2015 reauthorization required AMS to conduct a comprehensive study of LMR due to Congress by March 1, 2018.  In addition to working with USDA’s Office of the Chief Economist on the study, we will be engaging cattle, swine, and lamb producers, packers, and other market participants to gather information regarding the marketing practices used for livestock and meat to identify legislative or regulatory recommendations for the next reauthorization in 2020.

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