Washington - Farmland Industries and the National Pork Producers Council announced a project to give farmers the average open-market price and quality data for hogs bought at four Farmland slaughter plants.
The information, based on daily purchases, will become available about October 1 on the NPPC web site, officials said during a telephone news conference. The four Midwestern plants purchase a total of 8,000 to 10,000 head per day.
Other packers will be invited to participate, NPPC officials said.
Farmland and NPPC said their project would deliver more detailed and useful information to hog farmers than they could get elsewhere, including the USDA’s network of price reports from auction yards.
Under the NPPC project, Farmland will provide the average price for open- market transactions at each of the four plants, volume of purchases, average carcass weight, average backfat and average lean percent age, as well as the high and low price of the day. The Farmland plants are in Crete, Neb., Monmouth, Ill., and Denison and Dubuque, both in Iowa.
By comparison, one Farmland official said, the USDA reporting system captures the base price for hogs but not their quality.
NPPC president Donna Reifschneider, of Smithton, Ill., said the voluntary system would be more flexible and informative than a rigid format designed by Congress or USDA.
Pending in Congress was legislation to require beef packers to report all sales prices, including those for cattle grown under contract. The NPPC project would be precedent-setting as voluntary reporting but would not cover contract sales.
Meat Industry Insights News Service
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Northport, NY 11768
Phone: 631-757-4010
Fax: 631-757-4060
E-mail: sflanagan@sprintmail.com
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