Agricultural News
Cattle Industry's Top Minds Putting Heads Together to Solve Futures Trade Trouble in DC This Week
Thu, 06 Oct 2016 12:37:45 CDT
The cattle industry's top minds are meeting this week in Washington, D.C. with representatives from the CME Group to discuss possible strategies for fixing the volatility being seen in both live and feeder cattle futures contracts as well as the cash market. Farm Director Ron Hays spoke with National Cattlemen's Beef Association's Colin Woodall, vice president of Governmental Affairs, who will be at the meeting and says futures have become much less reliable as a risk management tool for producers. He says this is an issue that has been in the works for some time now.
"We have cattle producers from all segments of our industry and from across the country and town this week, to really focus on three things," Woodall said. "The primary focus is on the volatility that we are seeing in the CME Group's cattle futures contracts. We have to get that addressed."
In addition, Woodall says the working group will discuss what changes if any to contract specifications can be made that might help alleviate some of the issues causing the problem, and will also broach the subject of price discovery and the overall strength of the cash market. He mentioned that all three commissioners of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission would be in attendance and included in the discussion as well.
After some less than progressive talks with CME during the two organizations' last few meetings, Woodall says NCBA's leadership is looking to bring some policy and legislative help into the conversation. Hence, the expected presence of the trade commissioners.
"We've had to change our approach a little bit," Woodall said. "It's obvious that just working with the CME is no longer going to give us the access to the data that we had hoped for so that's why we have already gone to the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, and why we invited all three commissioners to join us."
Woodall says that if for some reason the CFTC is unable to help in this case, NCBA has also invited the House Agriculture Committee, CFTC's oversight body, to potentially lend more assistance.
Listen to Colin Woodall brief Farm Director Ron Hays on this week's meeting between NCBA and the CME Group on today's Beef Buzz.
The Beef Buzz is a regular feature heard on radio stations around the region on the Radio Oklahoma Network and is a regular audio feature found on this website as well. Click on the LISTEN BAR below for today's show and check out our archives for older Beef Buzz shows covering the gamut of the beef cattle industry today.
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