Hoeven Outlines Efforts to Strengthen Market Opportunities for U.S. Cattle Industry

At a hearing of the Senate Agriculture Committee this week, Senator John Hoeven discussed efforts to strengthen market opportunities for the nation’s cattle industry. With Mr. Dudley Hoskins, the nominee to be Under Secretary of Agriculture for Marketing and Regulatory Programs, Hoeven outlined the need to:

• Fully enforce the Packers and Stockyards Act to help ensure more competitive and transparent cattle markets.
  • As chairman of the Senate Agriculture Appropriations Committee, Hoeven has worked to provide additional funding for the Agricultural Marketing Service (AMS) to enforce the law and investigate anti-competitive practices.
  • Hoskins highlighted the Cattle Contract Library pilot program that Hoeven established as an example of how to create greater price transparency for cattle producers.
• Secure fair access to foreign markets for U.S. beef producers and push back against artificial barriers impacting U.S. exports.
  • This dovetails with Hoeven’s efforts to strengthen the domestic market for U.S.-produced beef.
  • To this end, Hoeven helped introduce bipartisan legislation to reinstate mandatory country of origin labeling (MCOOL) for beef.