On Thursday, Oct. 26, rumors started to spread through the market that changes to grading cameras in a few high-volume packing plants had changed grading outcomes.
“The adjustments that were made mean that packers actually have to buy cattle the right way and compete and bid aggressively for higher grading cattle to ensure they grade, thus the reason for the sharply higher trade the last couple of weeks,” stated Troy Vetterkind of Vetterkind Cattle Brokerage early last week, for example.
Newly confirmed USDA Under Secretary Greg Ibach confirmed in a letter to stakeholders in the first week of November that the camera recalibration happened.
“This summer, USDA reviewed and approved an updated version of one of the cameras [used to aid USDA graders to evaluate marbling in beef], and several major packers chose to install them in their plants over the summer. Over time, our professional USDA graders observed that the camera wasn’t operating as expected, which caused them to override camera grades at a higher rate than normal,” explained Ibach in the early-November letter.
“We made an adjustment to the camera last week to bring it back in line with how the previous camera technology was working.”
Ibach also noted at that time the recalibrated systems may be altered again. This happened last week, starting Thursday, Nov. 9.
In a second letter, released last Wednesday, Ibach explained that there were two changes needed in the second recalibration.
“The first change, which affects all plants using camera technology, is to adjust the override procedure from 40 degrees to 20 degrees. This will provide USDA graders additional flexibility to override a grade assigned by a camera if that grade is more than 20 degrees off.”
He went on, summarizing the second change as an additional software adjustment affecting only the original nine packers which had adopted the newer camera technology. It was not specified what this software change was, though Ibach claimed it was found necessary through USDA Agricultural Marketing Service’s (AMS’) assessment of the first software recalibration.
In his letters, Ibach attempted to assure stakeholders that the grading system problems that resulted in the changes had “minor impacts” on overall grading performance.
“We value your input and you have my commitment that we will continue to communicate with you to ensure our mutual goal of protecting the integrity of our beef grading services,” Ibach wrote in his second letter. “We ask that you also provide input to AMS on ways we can improve this process going forward and share any concerns you may have.” — WLJ
