At a recent U.S. Department of Agriculture’s data users’ meeting, experts from the Agricultural Marketing Service explained the use of the new Livestock Mandatory Reporting Live Cattle Data Dashboard tool, which was announced in June and rolled out in August.
The dashboard tracks and displays dynamic pricing information on cattle markets. It is now updated weekly every Tuesday but will soon move to daily updating.
The LMR Dashboard is part of a series of ongoing efforts by AMS to make access to USDA Market News information more user-friendly. Marisa Reuber explained that all of the data is captured through the Livestock Mandatory Reporting Tableau program, which was built in-house. She noted that while the LMR program has existed for two decades, the dashboard only holds five years of data.
Jason Karwal, acting director at USDA/AMS Specialty Crops, said some data had never been published until the dashboard rollout, such as premiums and discounts on actual cattle transactions. The dashboard’ s landing page shows a graph tracking prices of fed cattle, with premiums and discounts noted below by state and region.
AMS has also started publishing additional information on the actual net premiums and discounts paid to cattle producers by packers under formula marketing arrangements on the National Weekly Direct Slaughter Cattle Report – Formulated and Forward Contract report and detailed quality grade price distribution information on the National Weekly Fed Cattle Comprehensive report
“In the last several years, AMS has offered these data in new and modern ways to ensure all stakeholders have access to the information they need to efficiently market their agricultural products. The enhanced insight gained from these tools gives producers equitable footing with large volume data users and fosters a fairer and more competitive marketplace,” the USDA said in a press release.
The AMS plans to roll out similar dynamic pricing dashboards for other agricultural products in 2025.
David Murray can be reached at [email protected].
