Cattle Industry May Benefit From Portion Of COVID19 Relief

According to Chelsea Good, vice president of government and industry affairs for the Livestock Marketing Association, a little known section of the COVID-19 relief package passed at the end of 2020 could provide relief for victims of unscrupulous cattle dealers. The Livestock Dealers Statutory Trust, she noted, was signed into law as part of that legislative package.

“It provides some extra protection for sellers of livestock to a livestock dealer in the unfortunate event of a payment default, either receiving no check from that livestock dealer, or a check coming back insufficient funds.”

Good said it’s not uncommon for a livestock seller to discover a “bad check” after the livestock have traded hands several times.

“Let’s say their feeder cattle. Dealer buys feeder cattle at their local livestock actions from producers in the country, puts together some loads, turns around sells those to a feed yard. If the feed yard pays the dealer, that feed yard is going to continue to have clear title to those livestock, the feed yard is not going to have to pay for those cattle twice. But it’s the proceeds, the money that that feed yard paid the dealer, those unpaid sellers are going to have first priority of those proceeds.”

Under the new law, unpaid sellers of livestock have the legal right to reclaim that livestock from the dealer or, as Good mentions, the funds received by the dealer.

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