Davin Budy, son of Chad and Danielle Budy, was awarded the overall Grand Champion award showing his Doublestop CL Plus variety in the 2024 Oklahoma 4-H/FFA Junior Wheat Show. Budy placed 7th in milling and production and 3rd in baking, earning him the title of 1st place as the FFA champion, and overall grand champion of the 4-H/FFA Junior Wheat Show. Budy is from the Cherokee FFA chapter.

Budy received $3000 in scholarship money for his accomplishments with his Doubelstop CL Plus variety. Davin also won a $750 premium from Oklahoma Genetics Inc. (OGI) for winning 1st place and then Grand Champion overall in the 4-H/FFA competition.

Emery Fisher, daughter of Clayton and Tara Fisher, placed 1st overall in the 4-H division while showing her Doublestop CL Plus variety in the 2024 Oklahoma 4-H/FFA Junior Wheat Show. Fisher placed 1st in the milling and production and 11th in the bake contest earning her the title of 1st place and 4-H champion overall. Emery is a member of the Okeene 4-H club in Blaine County.

Fisher received $3000 in scholarship money for her accomplishments with her Doublestop CL Plus variety. Avery also won a $500 premium from Oklahoma Genetics, Inc. (OGI) for winning 1st place/4-H Champion.

Scholarships are funded by Check-off dollars and awarded to the top five 4-H and top five FFA entries. The contest is sponsored by the Oklahoma Wheat Commission, Oklahoma Wheat Research Foundation, Oklahoma Genetics Incorporated, Westbred®, Oklahoma State University and the Oklahoma Department of Career Technology and Education.

Oklahoma Farm Bureau works to improve the lives of all Oklahomans by supporting our state’s agriculture community. As Oklahoma’s largest general farm organization led by Oklahoma farmers and ranchers, OKFB takes grassroots values and advocates for agriculture at the state Capitol and in Washington, D.C., to ensure our way of life continues for generations to come.

Farm Bureau hosts leadership events, supports our state’s agricultural youth and connects consumers with agriculture in order to build a brighter future for our state. Become an OKFB member today online at okfarmbureau.org/join. Together, we are rural Oklahoma.

A Texas federal court halted the implementation of the Corporate Transparency Act’s beneficial ownership reporting requirements that included America’s farmers, ranchers, and agribusinesses. The court held the CTA as likely unconstitutional, so it issued a preliminary injunction barring the government from enforcing the Act and its reporting requirements against anyone. Before the ruling, small businesses that met certain criteria would have had to file reports with the Treasury Department by January 1, 2025, or risk fines and criminal penalties.

Several Ag Groups were quick to react to the ruling down in Texas- including the National Cattlemen's Beef Association. “The Corporate Transparency Act requires millions of family farmers and ranchers to file complex paperwork and disclose beneficial ownership information with the federal government under penalty of severe fines and jail time,” said NCBA Executive Director of Government Affairs Kent Bacus. “Across the country, cattle producers are relieved that this mandate is on hold while the law is being considered by the courts. NCBA will continue working with Congress to provide a permanent fix to the Corporate Transparency Act that protects family farmers and ranchers.”

Oklahoma Cattlemen's Michael Kelsey also offers a reaction as well- "“OCA is pleased to see the nationwide preliminary injunction blocking the Corporate Transparency Act (CTA). While the CTA is well meaning to uncover foreign and illegal business ownership, it mandates onerous reporting documentation on Oklahoma family farmers and ranchers with extremely heavy fines for non-compliance. The court’s wise ruling will allow time for Congress to address the problems with the CTA in order to provide relevant information while protecting family agriculture businesses.”

American Farm Bureau's Zippy Duvall also is pleased- “Farmers and ranchers across the country have faced great uncertainty since the passage of the Corporate Transparency Act in early 2021 and as the Beneficial Ownership Information regulations have been written. Questions are swirling about who is required to file and who will have access to the confidential data being collected. "

NCBA’s Ethan Lane Explores Controversial Recommendations for U.S. Dietary Guidelines

Senior Farm and Ranch Broadcaster, Ron Hays, spoke with the Vice President of Governmental Affairs at the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association, Ethan Lane for an update on the suggested changes to U.S. dietary guidelines that don’t favor beef in American diets or support scientific facts.

“The U.S. dietary guidelines have always been a rusty process,” Lane said. “This was a particularly anti-scientific highly partisan, highly political process.”

He told how the dietary guidelines advisory committee introduced a draft in the eleventh hour of deliberations without peer review, and then doggedly pursued the reduction of meat consumption in the U.S. in favor of beans and lentils regardless of scientific justification.

“What we got was this weird set of recommendations that suggested reducing meat consumption just because, then balance that out by eating more beans, peas, and lentils, but reduce starchy vegetables because of the additional calorie load incurred from the beans, peas, and lentils. The flow chart of what the average American would need in order to follow these guidelines is simply not realistic,” Lane stated. “I think it speaks volumes of how broken this process is.”

Agricultural Economics Insights (AEI) provided economic analysis in American Agriculture mainly for the corn, soybeans, and wheat industries. They examine land values and economic trends in agriculture to help producers understand what is going on with farming. At the National Association of Farm Broadcasters Convention, Farm Director KC Sheperd talked with AEI’s Co-Founder and Partner Brent Gloy about current trends.

“This has been a tough year financially for a lot of people,” Gloy admitted. “Livestock has been pretty good, and that has kind of balanced out at the sector level making it not just a disaster, but row crops and grains are tough.”

He has observed situations that will make obtaining good cash flow difficult for farmers, and high interest rates will only compound the problem.

Gloy believes that it is still too early to tell if the incoming Trump administration will make things better, but said there are a few things that he could tell. “It does appear that the economic participants are looking forward to getting back to business with less regulations,” Gloy shared. “In the ag space, it comes with a little bit of overhang of added tariffs. If we just look at the tariffs that we place on things, it might not be that bad for agriculture. The problem will be the retaliatory tariffs.”

Artificial intelligence (AI) is one of the tech sector’s newest innovations and will likely impact every industry. Beyond just a buzzword, this technology may be on your farm soon.

Artificial intelligence is loosely defined and can mean anything from machine learning to large language model (LLM) generative AI. Machine learning is already used in agriculture, such as on John Deere’s See and Spray system, using cameras to identify weeds to spray and obstacles to avoid. 

Chances are, you have already heard of generative AI, and can already use it on multiple different web platforms and devices — Microsoft’s Copilot, Google’s Gemini, and Facebook’s Meta AI all are available for consumer use. Generative AI can create a variety of text, images, and audio, and is in the very early stages of video generation.

There are many AI business- and consumer-grade applications, including those for the agriculture industry. Before diving into AI’s potential benefits, it’s necessary to understand how it works, and its limitations.

Last week’s cattle harvest was curtailed with the Thanksgiving holiday, yielding just 528,000 head on the heels of the prior week’s inflated total of 631,000 head. 

Fed cattle values posted a sharp recovery last week to just under $190/cwt., a $3/cwt—improvement on the prior week. Prices have been rangebound since late September, trading between $184 and $190/cwt. for the period.

Calf and feeder cattle prices have been much more active in the past three weeks with two market-moving events. Widespread precipitation through the center of the country initially sent small grain grazers to the auction markets with gusto as winter wheat and similar winter grazing prospects turned optimism higher. Additionally, the discovery of screw worms in a southern Mexico cow prompted officials to close the U.S.-Mexico border for an undetermined period. The always-volatile Feeder Cattle futures contracts on the CME have responded sharply higher on the heels of both events. The nearby January contract has settled in a range around $258/cwt. in the past five days after a rapid ascent from the $243/cwt. opening price on November 15.