The Livestock Marketing Association announced Saturday night at the 2023 Convention in southwest Florida that the 2024 LMA Convention and World Livestock Auctioneer Championship will be where it was in 2010- the Oklahoma National Stockyards.(Pictured above- the 2010 Semifinal contestants in the Sale Arena of the Oklahoma National Stockyards)

We covered the 2010 World Championship in OKC and was on hand for the 2023 LMA/WLAC events in Punta Gorda and Arcadia this past weekend- and talked with LMA Regional Rep for Oklahoma, Arkansas and southern Kansas, Joe Barbour.

Barbour has been working with officials in Oklahoma City about the 2024 event and told us about the plans to date:

Dates for the 2024 LMA Convention and 60th WLAC Contest- June 12-15, 2024

Semifinals, Finals and Awards Banquet- Saturday June 15, 2024

Convention Hotel- Omni, downtown OKC

Regional Qualifiers leading up to Oklahoma City Contest- Wyoming, Minnesota and Kentucky



National Livestock was founded in 1932 in Oklahoma City. National’s Marketing Division offers cattle for sale weekly at the Oklahoma National Stockyards in Oklahoma City. The Finance Division lends money to ranchers across several states for cattle production. The Grazing Division works with producers to place cattle for grazing on wheat or grass pastures. 

National also owns and operates other livestock marketing subsidiaries including Southern Oklahoma Livestock Auction in Ada, Oklahoma, OKC West Livestock Market in El Reno, Oklahoma, and the nation’s premier livestock video sale, Superior Livestock Auction. National offers customers many services custom made for today’s producer. To learn more, click here for the website or call the Oklahoma City office at 1-800-310-0220.

The June World Agricultural Supply and Demand Estimates (WASDE) and Crop Production reports were both released on Friday. Focusing on South American crop production, USDA raised Brazil’s current corn production 2 million metric tons (mmt) and soybean production by 1 mmt while lowering Argentina’s corn and soybean production each by 2 mmt as well.

Farm Director KC Sheperd visited with Allendale’s Rich Nelson, and who said USDA left a lot of questions for future reports.

“Corn stocks annual crop side they were raised by 15 million bushels. Or 35 million bushels," Nelson said. "Now, there’s 1.45 range pretty much what the trade was expecting, and they did leave the new crop numbers unchanged. So still staying with trend yield, which is not unusual for this time of year, as well as harvested acres unchanged. Soybeans, same type of story, in this case, they saw a 15 million bushel increase in stocks now 230, And they as they always do from pretty much on this June report. They left this soybean acreage as well as yields unchanged.”

Nelson said when it comes to wheat, the report showed a larger movement in terms of discussion.

“We did see the all wheat production number in this case, raised by 6 million bushels at 1.665," Nelson said. " They add a little bit to this discussion for hard red wheat based on these recent rains, adding 9 million bushels, they are estimating."

When it comes to cotton, Nelson said it has been a topic of conversation on the last few reports.

“For this month’s report we did see USDA raise the production estimate now going from 15.5 million bales now 16.5 And they chose to add a little bit to ending stocks," Nelson said. "3.3 million bales last month, now 3.5. So they did reflect some of the discussion point about a better production picture but a lot of people noting that they really didn’t hit it full steam.”

Congressman Frank Lucas Optimistic About 2023 Farm Bill Completion On-Time

Recently, I had the chance to visit with Congressman Frank Lucas about Waters of the U.S., the 2023 Farm Bill, and more.

“The Sackett v. EPA decision made a dramatic difference,” Lucas said. “Basically, what the Supreme Court ruled was that the federal government, the Environmental Protection Agency, could only interpret the rule in wetlands when they were ‘as a practical matter indistinguishable from the Waters of the U.S.’ So, they can’t go after the ponds, and they can’t go after the mudhole in your backyard. The federal government only has responsibility for waters that are navigable and are attached to waters that are navigable.”

After President Obama started the process of redefining WOTUS many years ago, then President Trump came in and instigated a rule change to try and undo what Obama had put through.

“Then, President Obama’s Vice-President, now President Biden comes in to go back down that path,” Lucas said. “So, a long, complicated struggle, but a really big step in the right direction from the Supreme Court in Sackett v. EPA.”

With the actions that have taken place by the Supreme Court regarding the new WOTUS rule, Lucas said he does not believe the Biden Administration will attempt to try and make any more changes.

“They are not going to be able to pass a law that would undo the Supreme Court ruling,” Lucas said.

At the annual Livestock Marketing Association meeting, I caught up with the vice president of government and industry affairs at the LMA, Chelsea Good, about industry conversations regarding livestock marketing.

“Our government affairs committee worked with Congress really hard over the years to get a dealer statutory trust passed into law, so a lot of what we talked about was Packers and Stockyards and their enforcement of that,” Good said.

Good said the LMA is not pleased with the USDA at the moment.

“There have been some default situations where I think that they have an enforcement responsibility to come in and take an accounting of livestock and make sure that the unpaid sellers are first in line,” Good said. “They haven’t always been living up to their requirements there, so that was a big part of the discussion last night is we have given Packers and Stockyards a better tool to make sure unpaid sellers of livestock to a livestock dealer are made closer to whole. Now we are going to have to put their feet to the fire and make sure they actually are doing what they are supposed to do there.”

Regarding the USDA looking into revising some rules, Good said the USDA has mainly been focused on the GIPSA (Grain Inspection, Packers and Stockyards Administration) competition rules that have been tried for over a decade and have not succeeded.

Make Father’s Day Sizzle with Beef on the Grill

Easy recipes help the whole family celebrate dad this year. 

The best Father’s Day gifts are handmade, so celebrate the special dads in your life by creating a memorable culinary experience that suits their style, taste and love of the grill.

The Oklahoma Beef Council has you covered with beef recipes that are sure to make Father’s Day special and show how much you care.

“There is no better way to celebrate dads this Father’s Day, than with beef on the grill,” said Heather Buckmaster, executive director of the Oklahoma Beef Council. “Get the family involved and make one of these great beef recipes, sure to please everyone’s taste buds.”

Dads will love Grilled Cowboy Steaks, with a rub that tastes like you are eating on the open range. The flavorful taste of the juicy steak, the sizzle of the grill, and being surrounded by loved ones will give dad the gift of escape.  

For dads who are more old-school, try the Burgers with Grilled Onions recipe, a classic ground beef burger topped with grilled onions. This beefy burger brings a bold taste that will give dad and the whole family a bigger kick than even his best dad joke.

They started the week with 31 semifinalists from across the US and Canada. Saturday night- the best of the 2023 best was selected- the Livestock Marketing Association announced the 2023 World Livestock Auctioneer Champion is Jacob Massey of Petersburg, Tennessee. For more than a decade, Massey has participated in the contest. In 2022- he was the Runnerup Reserve Champion(3rd Place) in the contest that saw Will Epperly of Iowa named the World Champ. Saturday night- Epperly declared that Massey was one that would succeed him over the next twelve months.

Massey receives $6,000 in Cash, the use of a GMC pickup for the coming year and more. The Reserve World Champion hails from Canada- Dean Edge of Rimbey, Alberta. The third place finisher-the Runner Up Champion is Sixto Paiz of Portales, New Mexico.

Rookie of the Year was Troy Robinett from Decatur, Texas- while the High Interview Score Award was presented to Lynn Langvardt of Chapman, Kansas.

Two of these award winners have ties back to the Oklahoma. Third Place Finisher Pais sells weekly for the Western Oklahoma Livestock Market in Clinton and also at the Woodward Livestock Market.



Robinett travels each week to Durant, Oklahoma and sells for the Durant Livestock Market.

A Restoration Tale: Ruminants Small and Large Help Regenerate Depleted Prairie

See how a researcher and his family restored soil health, native grasses and diverse forages to abused and neglected land. Today, herds of sheep, goats and now bison continue the process as they graze under regenerative management.

When Kevin Lynch bought a dilapidated dairy farm in southern Oklahoma in 2011 it epitomized the need for regenerative management. 

“When I first bought my place, it was in bad shape,” says Lynch, an agricultural research associate with the Noble Research Institute. “Bare soil, nothing but weeds, no grass hardly at all. It had definitely been abused.”

Back then, “regenerative ranching” – today central to the mission at Noble — wasn’t in his vocabulary. Now, 12 years later, Lynch can say he’s seen first-hand how using ecological processes has restored his degraded grazing lands.

STARTING SMALL THEN GOING BIG:

Lynch’s primary livestock of choice for the past 30 years has been small ruminants. When he went home each day from his job at Noble studying small grains and grasses, he applied what he learned to how he grazed his sheep and goat herds. Over the years, he developed his land into pastures with a variety of cool- and warm-season native and introduced grasses. More recently, he began incorporating cover crops to add even more diversity above and below ground.