Source:  Lisa M. Keefe, MEATINGPLACE.COM, 10/28/10

The mandatory wholesale pork price reporting system was authorized in September, but USDA says data is not expected to be available to the market until 2012, according to the CME’s Daily Livestock Report.

That news comes from Livestock Market News Acting Branch Chief Mike Lynch, who discussed the development of the system with attendees to the USDA’s Annual Data User’s Meeting last week in Chicago.

DLR editors Steve Meyer and Len Steiner reported that Lynch said the negotiated rule-making process is expected to take 18 months to complete. A committee of industry participants must be recruited to craft the initial proposed rule, they noted.

After that, the process likely will take some 4 to 6 months for the computer system changes, which puts the effective publication date into late 2012, although weekly pork export data representing actual product loading may be available sooner, because the Foreign Agricultural Service collects those data, Meyer and Steiner said.

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