A series of listening sessions, including one in Texas, will be held to gather stakeholder feedback on the Cattle Contracts Library Pilot Program.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) Agricultural Marketing Service (AMS) is hosting the sessions in key cattle producing states and will provide an opportunity for interested stakeholders to attend either in-person or virtually.

During these sessions, AMS will provide an overview of the current pilot program and then participants will be given an opportunity to share their feedback.

AMS also will accept written comments about the Cattle Contracts Library Pilot through Sept. 30. Written feedback can be submitted to Wash.LPGMN@usda.gov.

All written feedback and a recording of each listening session will be posted on the AMS website.

The first listening session will be held at 4 p.m. CT on Thursday, May 18, 2023, at the USDA Cattle & Carcass Training Center located on the campus of West Texas A&M University at 2513-2579 4th Ave, Canyon, TX, 79016.

Attendees at this Texas session may participate in-person (seating limited to 80) or virtually. For virtual attendees, the meeting will be broadcast live as a webinar. Instructions for how to join virtually can be found on the AMS Cattle Contracts Library Pilot page on the AMS website. Registration is not required. Attendees will be permitted to submit Q&A via the Zoom meeting.

The second listening session will be held at 1 p.m. CT on Friday, June 16, 2023, at the USDA Cattle & Carcass Training Center located on the campus of University of Nebraska-Lincoln, Loeffel Meat Science Laboratory, Lincoln, NE 68583.

Attendees at this Nebraska session may participate in-person (seating limited to 100) or virtually. For virtual attendees, the meeting will be broadcast live as a webinar. Instructions for how to join virtually can be found on the AMS Cattle Contracts Library Pilot page on the AMS website.

Details on future listening sessions will be announced when scheduled.

For additional information, contact Livestock, Poultry, and Grain Market News Director Michael Sheats at 202-690-3145.

The Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2022 directed AMS to establish a Cattle Contracts Library pilot program to increase market transparency for cattle producers.

The library provides transparency into both commonalities and key differences in contracts, as well as the context for those terms through the provision of relevant volume numbers.

The final rule implementing the pilot was published in the Federal Register on Dec. 7, 2022, with an effective date on Jan. 6, 2023.

The pilot became publicly accessible on Jan. 31, 2023.