Beef and Lamb New Zealand chairman Mike Petersen said a final draft would be prepared by the end of March and Mr Key would release it on May 4.
Mr Petersen said Mr Key had indicated to him that he saw great importance in the report.
"The Government is very keen to support this. They have been very supportive of the work to date and keen to help where they can."
The report's author, Deloitte, has identified three initial steps to improve the sector's viability, conservatively estimating gains of $360 million from shortening the supply chain through the removal of stock agents and third party traders, exporter co-operation in markets, processing automation and greater market access and farm productivity and lower compliance costs.
The claims have angered stock agents in particular who have questioned the basis on which the authors claim reducing their role could save the industry $80 million to $100 million a year.
Rural Livestock chairman John Faulks said the figures being touted were substantial and he believed they could not be substantiated given stock agents sourced about a third of prime lambs and prime cattle killed each year.
Mr Petersen said Deloitte was reviewing those figures to ensure they were accurate.
"The work will be robust and, by and large, farmers at the meetings feel the main issues have been captured."
The project has already given impetus to a project Beef and Lamb New Zealand had under way to identify the top 10 traits common among the top-performing 10% of farmers.
Mr Petersen said Deloitte had found that in the past 20 years there were more farmers performing well and more performing poorly relative to the average, while the number of those in the middle had declined.
This project was aimed at lifting the performance of the second and third quartile by promoting the attributes that made the top performers successful such as productivity gains, business management skills and cost control.
Mr Petersen said the top 10% of farmers had costs 30% less than the bottom performers.
