The Livestock Mandatory Price Reporting Act covers three livestock species, hogs, cattle and sheep and their meat, and sets requirements for price reporting by the commercial packing industry in the US.

The reauthorisation of the act, for another five years, passed the US House of Representatives in early summer, the Senate approved it about two weeks ago but, because of a technical change at the Senate level, it went back to the house where it was again approved last Monday and it was signed into law by the president on Thursday.

National Pork Producers Council CEO Neil Dierks says the information provided through mandatory price reporting has become the standard for how the US pork industry does business.

Neil Dierks-National Pork Producers Council:

Originally when this law was passed the US pork industry talked about the desire to have a mirror of what's happening in the market place so people had the information to make business decisions on.

It has always, in the pork industry's perspective, been focused on how do you get a picture of what the market looks like, simply reporting it, not influencing it one way or the other but just saying here's what it is.

Over time it has become the standard baseline for how our industry does business in the United States.

It became apparent in the fall of 2013 because the government shut down and price reporting was suspended during that time that we had a real void in information which really showed to me how reliant how our industry has become with this data, that it's viewed as unbiased.

It is what it is.

I would say it is an example of something our government does that is beneficial to commerce taking place.

As it relates to North America, Mr Dierks notes, his friends in Canada tell him Canadian prices are based on US prices so US Mandatory Price Reporting in the United States is also very important in Canada.