Responding to recommendations of an agricultural concentration task force, Secretary of Agriculture Dan Glickman last week announced a number of steps USDA will take to give producers a better sense of day-to-day marketing conditions. The National Cattlemen's Beef Association, which represents many of the country's hard-pressed beef producers, immediately voiced support for the plan.

Included among the 10 points of the plan:
• Commitments from 75 feedlots and packers in Kansas, Nebraska, Texas, Wyoming and Colorado to include prices for cattle owned or controlled by packers.
• Expanded reporting of pricing indicators like carcass quality, grade yield, and weight characteristics.
• More timely information in the form of a report showing slaughter by grade and yield for each of four regions within two weeks of slaughter. (Replacing a national report that often lags slaughter by up to two months.)
• Reporting of live cattle and hog crossings from Canada and Mexico.
• Development of regulations requiring more timely reporting of exports.
• Quarterly reports on share of market hogs produced under contract.
• Initiation of a comprehensive review of USDA surveillance and enforcement practices under the Packers and Stockyards Act.
  

  The Secretary announced that the improved voluntary system would be in place within three weeks. And he stated that the Department will pursue mandatory price reporting if the new system fails to improve the quality and timeliness of information producers need to stay abreast of the marketplace.
  

  

  THE CLEMSON UNIVERSITY COOPERATIVE EXTENSION SERVICE OFFERS ITS PROGRAMS TO PEOPLE OF ALL AGES, REGARDLESS OF RACE, COLOR, SEX, RELIGION, NATIONAL ORIGIN, OR HANDICAP AND IS AN EQUAL OPPORTUNITY EMPLOYER.
  COOPERATIVE EXTENSION WORK IN AGRICULTURE AND HOME ECONOMICS--STATE OF SOUTH CAROLINA, CLEMSON UNIVERSITY, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE, AND SOUTH CAROLINA COUNTIES COOPERATING.

  
  

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