At the request of the pork industry, USDA’s Agricultural Marketing Service (AMS) developed new guidance for swine reporting under the Livestock Mandatory Reporting (LMR) program. The purpose of this guidance is to enhance the transparency of the negotiated and swine or pork market formula purchase type categories. In addition, the pork industry requested that AMS change the publication schedule for the weekly negotiated wholesale pork reports from Monday morning of the following week to Friday afternoon of the current week. The earlier release of these reports will allow industry members to better utilize the information as more timely and effective pricing tools.
AMS will work with swine packers covered by the LMR requirements to implement this guidance through several outreach activities, including participation at the World Pork Expo and an industry conference call. The implementation and outreach period will allow companies time to train staff and make any required system updates.
AMS routinely collaborates with industry to improve its LMR reporting services and is hosting stakeholder meetings to gather industry feedback to promote an orderly reauthorization of LMR in 2020. AMS held a meeting with the pork industry on March 21-22, 2017. In addition to the guidance request, pork industry stakeholders asked AMS to conduct several data and reporting reviews to explore other areas for possible improvements. Materials from that meeting, including summary notes and the agenda, are available on the LMR Stakeholder Meetings page.
Conference Call
On Wednesday, June 14, 2017, AMS will host a conference call to discuss the industry-driven reporting changes and review some of the requested data analysis. To participate, call the following number at 11:00 AM Central Time (CST): (888) 844-9904; Access Code: 1665233.
New Reporting Guidance
- Effective immediately, AMS will accept emailed inquiries from producers to verify their reported swine trades at LPS-LMRHogs@ams.usda.gov.
- Effective July 3, 2017, all swine packing companies subject to LMR will report their swine purchases under the following new guidance, if applicable:
o Swine Purchases Based on the CME Lean Hog Index:
- All purchases of swine where the base price is based on the CME Lean Hog Index as the pricing mechanism should be reported as a Swine or Pork Market Formula Purchase. These hogs are currently reported as Other Market Formula Purchases.
- Any swine purchases formulated off of a future or option will continue to be reported as Other Market Formula Purchases. Following implementation, AMS will update the published reports by placing “Futures/Options” underneath the Other Market Formula label as a descriptor on the reports.
o Formula Purchases where the Base Price is Known:
- Any formula based purchases of swine where the base price is known at the completion of negotiation should be reported as a Negotiated Purchase.
- Any swine purchases using a formula price with an undetermined price at the completion of the negotiation will be reported as either a Negotiated Formula Purchase or a Swine or Pork Market Formula Purchase depending on the terms and times associated with the purchase.
- Effective July 7, 2017, AMS will begin publishing the National Weekly Negotiated Sales Pork Reports (LM_PK610 and LM_PK611) on Friday afternoon of the current week instead of Monday morning of the following week.
For more information on LMR, visit: www.ams.usda.gov/rules-regulations/mmr. For more information on the LMR stakeholder meetings, visit: LMR Stakeholder Meetings.
Alternatively, contact Mike Lynch, Livestock, Poultry, and Grain Market News Director, at (202) 720-4846; or Taylor Cox, Field Chief, at (515) 284-4460.
Livestock, Poultry, and Seed Program
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