Proposed Changes to Mandatory Reporting Regs

Oct. 31, 2003 -- In a Federal Register posted on Tuesday of this week, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) proposed an amendment to the Livestock Mandatory Reporting regulations to modify the requirements for the submission of information on domestic and imported boxed lamb cuts sales.

The rule would amend two definitions:

? ?carlot-based? would be amended to limit carlot-based sales of boxed lamb cuts to transactions between a buyer and a seller consisting of 1,000 pounds or more of one or more individual boxed items; and

? ?importer? would be amended to reduce the volume level of annual lamb imports establishing a person as an importer from 5,000 metric tons of lamb meat products per year to 2,500 metric tons.

"Mandatory price reporting (MPR) of wholesale imported lamb cuts has been the top issue for ASI with the price reporting system for the past year and we will be active in supporting the proposed rule to ensure it is implemented", stated ASI President Guy Flora. ?When the MPR regulation was published two and a half years ago, lamb was the only red meat to include importers. However, the threshold was set too high and so those companies did not report. This proposal aims to change that, and the bottom line is fairness. As American lamb companies are required to report daily to weekly, so should importers.

?I think it is also important that U.S. and foreign sheep producers are able to track wholesale prices of the competing lamb and monitor any ?fire-sale? activity,? added Flora.

Dec. 26, 2003, is the deadline to submit comments. ASI will distribute formal comments to USDA and the industry for use. Comments may be e-mailed to marketnewscomments@usda.gov or mailed to John Van Dyke, Chief; Livestock and Grain Market News; AMS Livestock and Seed Program; USDA Stop 0252; 1400 Independence Ave. SW; Washington DC 20250-0252; telephone (202) 720-6231. The proposed rule is available at: http://www.ams.usda.gov/lsmnpubs/mpr/ls0108.txt.

Staff Contact: Peter Orwick, ext. 33

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