The Agriculture Department’s Agricultural Marketing Service today released its long-awaited proposed revisions to the regulations under the Packers and Stockyards Act regarding the list of disclosures and information live poultry dealers must furnish to poultry growers and sellers with whom dealers make poultry growing arrangements.

“The proposal would establish additional disclosure requirements in connection with the use of poultry grower ranking systems by live poultry dealers to determine settlement payments for poultry growers,” AMS said. “The proposals are intended to promote transparency in poultry production contracting and to give poultry growers and prospective poultry growers relevant information with which to make business decisions.”

Comments on the rule and the information collection aspects of it must be received by Aug. 8.

The National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition said, “The proposed Transparency in Poultry Growing Contracts and Tournaments rule will improve the poultry payment system by guaranteeing some important transparency measures for producers. This rule, however, does nothing to address the fundamental structural issues of the poultry tournament system.”

A spokesman for the National Chicken Council said the group was still evaluating the rule and its potential impact on the industry, but will file comments on it.