USDA Publishes ‘3/70/20' Rule

August 6, 2001

USDA's Agricultural Marketing Service (AMS) has published a notice announcing a change to the confidentiality guidelines it follows regarding mandatory livestock price reporting. AMS expects that using the new guidelines will increase the numbers of published reports.

Under the new "3/70/20" guidelines, price reports will be published so long as three conditions are met for each report: (1)at least three reporting entities provide data at least 50% of the time over the most recent 60-day time period; (2) no single reporting entity provides more than 70% of the data for a report over the most recent 60-day period; and (3) no single reporting entity may be the sole reporting entity for an individual report more than 20% of time over the most recent 60-day period.

The previous ‘3/60' rule provided that at least three entities had to submit data and no single entity could be responsible for more than 60% of the data for a report to be published. USDA estimates that between April 2 and June 14, 30% of daily swine and cattle reports were withheld for confidentiality reasons. If the "3/70/20" guideline had been applied over that same time period, fewer than 2% would have been withheld.

American Meat Institute Senior Vice President of Regulatory Affairs and General Counsel Mark Dopp said, "We hope AMS' new '3/70/20' guidelines will be a step in the right direction - balancing the need for information with the desire to protect confidentiality."

The National Cattlemen's Beef Association said it "applauds the government for responding to cattle industry urging to release and implement a revised confidentiality standard for the mandatory livestock price reporting system. ...this system ... is one we believe will effectively provide timely market information that does not compromise the confidentiality of the companies, or the producers whose livestock they purchase."

Sen. Mike Enzi (R-WY) said that new confidentiality guidelines for livestock reporting programs will, "release the flow of information to market participants while preserving the confidentiality of business transactions. The flow of information on pricing, contracting for purchase and supply and demand conditions for livestock encourages competition. This new guideline will give and ranchers the important price reporting information they need."