Thursday, the Senate Agriculture Committee marked up reauthorization of the mandatory price reporting law. Iowa Pork Producers President Dave Struthers says an important provision would add a new negotiated formula price category to better reflect the total number of hogs negotiated each day regardless of how buyers and sellers arrive at the prices.

Struthers says the House reporting legislation contains provisions the Senate doesn’t have that would help producers. It would amend the definition of “reporting day” to expand the window in which prices are mandated to be reported.

It would also ensure that price reports are available during government shutdowns or emergency furloughs of federal employees. He says it was difficult to get price information during the last government shutdown.

Struthers is hoping once those bills get to conference, House and Senate negotiators will be able to meld those versions into a final bill.