Howdy Neighbors!

Here's your morning farm news headlines from the Director of Farm Programming for the Radio Oklahoma Network, Ron Hays. We are proud to have KIS Futures as a regular sponsor of our daily email update. KIS Futures provides Oklahoma Farmers & Ranchers with futures & options hedging services in the livestock and grain markets- Click here for the free market quote page they provide us for our website or call them at 1-800-256-2555.

We are also excited to have as one of our sponsors for the daily email Producers Cooperative Oil Mill, with 64 years of progress through producer ownership. Call Brandon Winters at 405-232-7555 for more information on the oilseed crops they handle, including sunflowers and canola- and remember they post closing market prices for canola and sunflowers on the PCOM website- go there by clicking here.

And we salute our longest running email sponsor- Midwest Farm Shows, producer of the just concluded Southern Plains Farm Show, as well as the Tulsa Farm Show. Click here for more on the December 2010 Tulsa Farm Show, including information on how you can be an exhibitor.

If you have received this by someone forwarding it to you, you are welcome to subscribe and get this weekday update sent to you directly by clicking here.

Merrigan began her day on Thursday in Oklahoma at the Pioneer Telephone Coop headquarters in Kingfisher. Click here to learn more about the Rural Development programs she trumpeted at her stop in town. It was then on out of Kingfisher to the farm of Jack Stuteville- where the closed "barn door" meeting with farm leaders was held.

Merrigan heard about the struggle to be profitable as a mid sized farmer at this time. She also heard from one farmer that was unhappy that he had been rejected to serve the industry as a member of a self help promotion board because he was not a minority of one sort or another. And she was questioned about the program "Know Your Farmer- Know Your Food." (By the way- our thanks to Kathy James of USDA's Rural Development Stillwater office- she shared some pictures of that meeting with us- and we have one of them on our front page of our website.)

Click on the link below and you can hear three perspectives out of this meeting- including comments we got exclusively with Deputy Secretary Merrigan, Oklahoma Secretary of Ag Terry Peach and Oklahoma Cattlemen's Association Executive Director Scott Dewald. (By the way- Dewald is our guest for Saturday morning on News9 in Oklahoma City for our In the Field segment- we invite you to tune in during their morning news around 6:40 AM to see Scott and I talk about this encounter with the Secretary.)

Click here for our report with audio from Kathleen Merrigan, Terry Peach and Scott Dewald and the meeting held Thursday in Kingfisher)

However, these events were not the reason that the Deputy of USDA was in Oklahoma. Instead, the two events that the Secretary participated in that were not touted on her schedule and did not have news releases coming as she made stops for them included a closed door meeting with Ag Leaders in the State in a barn on a Kingfisher wheat farm- the story we have for you above. Later in the day, she participated in an almost two hour meeting with the Tribal Conservation Advisory Council. Several tribal leaders were in attendance, including Chickasaw Chief Billy Annatubby. This meeting between the number two person at USDA and Tribal Leaders was called "historic" by both Native Americans that attended as well as by Deputy Secretary Kathleen Merrigan.

Click here for more on this meeting- and to hear Deputy Secretary Merrigan's comments about this conversation that was held with Tribal leaders and others.

Click here for more on the Tribal Conservation Advisory Meeting that Kathleen Merrigan was invited to attend- and did.

Gene writes "Canola harvest will start next week depending on weather. They will be Swathing and pushing the Canola down and preparing to pick it up for harvest."

He adds "Like wheat harvest it will start in the Walters, Temple and Frederick areas. This week, I have looked at several fields in southern Oklahoma and Chillicothe, TX areas- and the canola looks very good.
There are still insects to be watched, as they could still affect yield." Gene concludes by saying "Yields should be better than last year."

Ray says that with the tax credits that have been in place for 30 years, ethanol has a safety net of having enough corn even if we have a shortfall, but that livestock producers will be left holding the bag filled with high prices for feed the next time we come up with a shorter crop. Ray says the AMI and other groups in the livestock industry are calling on Congress to not renew a couple of key tax credits for ethanol- and Dave Ray claims that this would level the playing field between various users of corn.

Click on the link below for today's Beef Buzz where Dave Ray lays out his claims- and we have the audio you can listen to as well as a link to the letter sent by the AMI, the NPPC and the NCBA to the House Ways and Means Committee in recent days calling for NO renewal of the ethanol tax credits.

Click here for our latest Beef Buzz with comments from Dave Ray with the American Meat Institute on Ethanol Tax breaks and the livestock industry.

Beef muscle cuts are off to a particularly strong start in 2010, increasing 22 percent in volume to 156,947 metric tons (346 million pounds) for the quarter. The increase in value was even higher, up 24 percent to $678 million. The combined beef/beef variety meat totals are also impressive, rising 11 percent in volume (to 225,122 metric tons or 496.3 million pounds) and 14 percent in value (to $788.5 million). Total beef exports accounted for 10.6 percent of overall production in March compared to 9.4 percent in March 2009. Export value per steer and heifer slaughtered equated to $127.40, compared to $110.67 last year.

Pork muscle cut exports pulled ahead of their 2009 pace by 1 percent in volume (356,297 metric tons or 785.5 million pounds) and 2 percent in value ($941.9 million). Combined pork/pork variety meat totals are slightly behind last year in both volume (468,793 metric tons or 1 billion pounds) and value ($1.11 billion).
The USMEF has provided a comprehensive rundown of the latest sales for both beef and pork- and you can click on the link below to check that out.

Click here for more on the latest beef and pork export numbers- its a real good news story for the meat industry.

District V encompasses the line of these counties: Grady, Jefferson, Kay, Logan, Noble, Oklahoma, Stephens and everything east of this line.

All wheat producers within District V boundaries who are actively engaged in wheat production, have marketed wheat, paid a check-off fee and left that fee with the Commission for the current year are eligible to vote. It will be the responsibility of the producer to prove their eligibility to vote by providing a dated grain elevator receipt including the producer's name and amount of wheat sold, and a driver's license or some other form of identification.

Click here for more details of the District 5 Wheat Commission election coming this Wednesday in Kay County.

The reason for the Dispersal is the suddent death of Ken Jackson in April- he was the partner in J&J Cattle with Mark and Brenda Johnson and to settle his estate, this annual production sale now becomes a dispersal to sell all jointly owned animals.

You can call for more information 580-455-2256- or click on the link below for our Auction Listing of the Dispersal Sale.

CLick here for more details and a link to the full catalog of this special sale in Orlando for J&J Cattle.

We also invite you to check out our website at the link below to check out an archive of these daily emails, audio reports and top farm news story links from around the globe.

Click here to check out WWW.OklahomaFarmReport.Com

Here are some links we will leave in place on an ongoing basis- Click on the name of the report to go to that link:
Our Daily Market Wrapup from the Radio Oklahoma Network with Ed Richards and Tom Leffler- analyzing the Futures Markets from the previous Day-
Ron on RON Markets as heard on K101 mornings with cash and futures reviewed- includes where the Cash Cattle market stands, the latest Feeder Cattle Markets Etc.
Previous Day's Wheat Market Recap- Two Pager From The Kansas City Board of Trade looks at all three US Wheat Futures Exchanges with extra info on Hard Red Winter Wheat and the why of that day's market.
Daily Oklahoma Cash Grain Prices- As Reported by the Oklahoma Dept. of Agriculture. <
The National Daily Feeder & Stocker Cattle Summary- as prepared by USDA.
The National Daily Slaughter Cattle Summary- as prepared by USDA.
Finally, Here is the Daily Volume and Price Summary from the Texas Cattle Feeders Association.