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 welcome Big Iron Unreserved Online Auctions as our newest sponsor of the daily Email. Their next auction is Wednesday, November 10 - featuring Low Hour, Farmer Owned Equipment. Click here for their website to learn more about their Online Farm Equipment Auctions.

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 springtime Southern Plains Farm Show, as well as the upcoming 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.

In the case of soybeans- it was all about the ending stocks being reduced to 185 million bushels- Market Vereran Rich Feltes said that is skinny enough that any hiccup in the South American crops would be amplified many times over.
For cotton- this is a commodity that has seen its price double this year- and just continue to go higher and higher. As we write this on Wednesday morning, it's right at $1.56 a pound, which has translated into a huge payday for cotton farmers that had not already sold all of their crop ahead of harvest season. These prices for cotton are the highest ever- previous highs were around $1.18 a pound- cotton stocks are at their tightest levels since 1925. For cotton- it's also all about China- they are the number one cotton producer in the world and also the number one user- it's likely you have several pieces of clothing were made in China. One Technical analysis that we have seen this week suggests that the next leg up for cotton technically might be all the way to $1.90 a pound- so who knows- this market may have a big run still to come.

For corn- the USDA reduced the size of the US corn crop this fall to 12.54 billion bushels- in line with what a lot of traders were expecting. The real story is about ethanol usage.
USDA raised its forecast for corn use for ethanol in the 2010/11marketing year that began Sept. 1 by 100 million bushels to 4.8 billion bushels. The use forecast compares to 4.568 billion bushels used for ethanol in the 2009/10 year and 3.709 billion bushels in 2008/09.

CLick on the link below for our coverage from yesterday morning as the reports came out- we have links in our story for both the Crop Production numbers as well as the ERS World Supply Demand story.

Click here for more on the wild ride for the commodities- sparked by the latest USDA figures.

The first two members of that taskforce that will serve with Sullivan were named by the Governor Elect on Tuesday as well- and one is well known to Oklahoma farmers and ranchers. Named by Fallin to this taskforce was Gary Sherrer and David Rainbolt of BancFirst- and current Chairman of the State Chamber of Commerce.

Gary Sherrer is a former Oklahoma state representative who served as secretary of agriculture under Governor David Walters and served as both the secretary of environment and the executive director of the Water Resources Board under Governor Frank Keating. He currently serves as the assistant vice president for external relations in OSU's Division of Agricultural Sciences and Natural Resources. He also serves on the board of directors at Rural Enterprises, Incorporated.

Governor Elect Fallin has set up a website for her transition to the Governor's office- click here to jump there.

Among the things we talked about with Clay was the Natural resource Conservation Service Committment to a multi year investment through the EQIP program for the Eucha-Spavinaw and Illinois river Watersheds, as well as recent word from the EPA of Oklahoma having a substantial number of the success stories in the Clean Water Act efforts of the Federal- State- Private partnership. Clay gives us an in depth look at each of those stories- emphasizing how this voluntary approach has worked so well as landowners have stepped up and paid the cost share to improve water quality in watersheds across the state.

We also talked with Clay about Oklahoma Congressman Frank Lucas stepping up to the Chairmanship of the House Ag Committee- Pope says for both production agriculture and conservation interests in our state and region- and he believes nationally- this is great news to have someone who has a first hand understanding of both the ag programs and the conservation programs that are found in these titles of the Farm Law in this role. Pope says the conservation community is looking forward to helping any way they can when the 2012 Farm Bill is marked up- especially as it relates to the Conservation title.

Click here to read more on these Conservation success stories- and a chance to hear our interview with Clay Pope on all things conservation.

Typically, a steep price rollback across feeder weights occurs when prices are cyclically high and numbers are low. The market is providing incentives to encourage more calf production and to speed animals into feedlots quickly. This is particularly the case when feed prices are low. The years 1991 and 2005 are good examples. Alternatively, a flat price rollback occurs when cattle numbers are large and prices are low, thus encouraging a slower movement of animals through the system. High corn prices also cause a flat price relationship to encourage more forage based gains and reduce expensive feedlot gains. 1996 was a prime example, when cyclically low cattle prices combined with high corn prices. In fact, in this rare example, there was not a price rollback but rather a price rollup as feeder cattle gained in value as they gained weight.

The current market situation is unusual but indicative of the situation now and generally what is expected for the foreseeable future: low cattle numbers and high corn prices at the same time. There result is an unusual looking feeder price-weight relationship. Instead of a smooth downward sloping line, the current feeder price graph is kinked, with an upper portion that is steep so as the provide signals to cow-calf producers to increase calf production and a flat portion for heavy weight feeder cattle that provides a high value of gain for stocker based production. Currently there is a price rollup at some weights as prices for 750 pounds steers, for example, are higher than prices for 600 pound steers. The feeder market is simultaneously sending signals to use forage for cow-calf production and to stocker producers for additional stocker production. Forage is more valuable and forage producers have more production alternatives than we have seen in many years. Unlike previous occasions when high corn prices were usually drought related shocks, the current demand driven higher corn prices are not likely to go away and cattle numbers will remain tight for the next two to four years. We can expect the current feeder price signals to remain much as they are now as long as these conditions persist.

The negotiations are now at the senior level, as USTR Ron Kirk is at the table for the US- Korean Trade Minister Kim Jong-hoon is across the table for the South Korean government. . Another Korean website is reporitng overnight that a deal has been struck- and that is very likely that President Obama and Korean President Lee will publically agree to it when they meet. According to the DongA website, "Korea agreed to further open its market to U.S. auto imports as demanded by Congress. Seoul also reportedly accepted Washington's requests to include eased safety and environmental standards into an appendix, but refused revision of clauses in the agreement.
"The U.S. accepted Korea's position that beef imports are a separate issue from the agreement. "

The key for beef producers is beef going into Korea and the tariff rate. The FTA should start the clock ticking on reducing the current 40% tariff to zero over a fifteen year period.
It does appear that labor unions in Korea plan huge rallies against the deal- it should make for good TV.

The Grays will be offering 50 service age bulls, 20 Registered Hereford Females and 25 Commercial Black and Red Baldy Females.

Several states are always represented in the crowd on sale day for their seedstock sale- and Charles Gray tells me that he has heard from more than one out of state buyer that they travel to his sale because they can always buy more quality for the dollars they spend in the bulls they purchase from the Gray sale than they can back home.

Call Charles or Karen right away to get a sale catalog- or to get last minute information about the sale- that number is 405-341-6861.

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.