business

U.S. Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) Agricultural Marketing Service released its second USDA Market News report covering grass fed beef yesterday.  This is the first report of its kind, filling a significant data gap for the industry and increasing transparency in the marketplace.

For almost a century, USDA Market News has provided farmers, ranchers and businesses with market and pricing information.  Over the years, our reports have evolved to better meet the changing demands and needs of stakeholders who rely on our data to remain competitive.

Earlier this year, USDA’s Agricultural Marketing Service (AMS) published the first Livestock Mandatory Reporting (LMR) Wholesale Pork reports.  This was the culmination of a process that started when Congress passed the Mandatory Price Reporting Act of 2010, which added wholesale pork cuts to the commodities required to be reported by packers.  Cattle, swine, sheep, boxed beef, boxed lamb, and imported lamb meat already were covered under the program.

Using negotiated rulemaking – a process that allows more interaction with stakeholders than formal rulemaking – AMS developed the rule with the Wholesale Pork Reporting Negotiated Rulemaking Committee, which included pork producers, pork packers, processors, retailers, buyers, and other interested stakeholders.  By working directly with a range of stakeholders, USDA ensured that the final rule had support throughout the industry.

Just because a producer works at a smaller operation doesn’t mean he or she can’t sell on a bigger scale. And the size of a farm shouldn’t limit a producer’s ability to feed local foods to local people. But how can such an operation connect the dots to successfully market its products?

One answer lies in a new kind of business model known as food hubs, which are emerging as critical pillars for building stronger regional and local food systems.  A food hub centralizes the business management structure to facilitate the aggregation, storage, processing, distribution, and/or marketing of locally/regionally produced food products.