Senior Farm and Ranch Broadcaster Ron Hays had an in-depth conversation with NCBA’s Vice President of Governmental Affairs Ethan Lane and has been featuring highlights from it over the past couple of days of BeefBuzz. In Part One, they discussed the necessity of Trump’s tariff policies and why NCBA supports them. In Part Two, they discussed the challenges of getting a renewed tax bill. Today, they are discussing Trump’s Cabinet and potential impacts on agriculture.

Lane shared that Kennedy has touted beef on social media as an important part of a healthy diet, so he is encouraged by the signs, considering that the HHS agency is responsible for completing the dietary guidelines process.

“The recommendations coming out of the Biden era were not good for beef,” Lane explained. “They were preloaded with an anti-beef bias. The recommendations reflected that in that sort of arbitrary reduction in red meat intake, balanced out by beans, peas, and lentils.”

He described it as a “weird sort of equation” asking people to eliminate beef and substitute it with beans, peas, and lentils; however, the caloric content of those things is so high that other things in the diet have to be altered in order to balance out the equation.

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.

During the month of April, the Radio Oklahoma Ag Network and Oklahoma Farm Report are spotlighting the 19 Area Stars of Oklahoma FFA, who are among the highest achievers in the organization.

This week, our coverage of the 2025 Oklahoma FFA Star Award Finalists continues with Ag Placement competitor Avery McGill of the Byng FFA chapter representing the Southeast Area.

“My project is unique for an FFA SAE,” McGill said. “I use prescribed burns to help mitigate wildfires while also benefiting wildlife. That is a fun balance to try and find because it is something difficult to deal with.”

She was inspired by her dad’s service as a volunteer fireman. “I grew up in the firehouse,” she said. “He had always done prescribed burns and different things like that, and as I got older, I decided that I wanted to help him. Then, the Ray fire happened, and he got deployed. Then, we really got started on our property burning, then we started helping neighbors, and it transformed into a business that eventually led to this really unique and cool SAE.”

Brooke Rollins Talks Tariffs, Screwworms, Ag Labor and More at TSCRA Annual Convention

USDA Secretary Brooke Rollins enjoyed her time in what she described as her home town- as she addressed thousands of cattlemen and ladies at the 2025 Texas and Southwestern Cattle Raisers Convention on Saturday. Ahead of her address to the TSCRA- she met briefly with reporters and she hit several topics important to the agricultural community.

She told reporters the economic battle being waged by President Trump is a “massive work to realign the American economy as we work to move our products from America to the world economy” and the President is using tariffs to get trading partners around the globe’s attention- and Secretary Rollins says the Administration is identifying non tariff trade barriers that will be negotiated in the days ahead as well- she mentioned “Argentina not accepting our live cattle since 2002 on unsubstantiated claims” and also the EU with some barriers against our row crops.

Rollins, in response to a question about the tariffs and how they have roiled the agricultural markets said “The period of uncertainty that we are in was one that was expected as the markets adjust- we have a lot of confidence that the adjustment will be quick as the negotiations are ongoing.”

Altus Oklahoma’s Mark Nichols & Dr. Miles Karner inducted into Oklahoma Cotton Hall of Fame

Jess “Mark” Nichols was inducted into the Oklahoma Cotton Hall of Fame this past weekend.

A fourth-generation farmer from Altus, Oklahoma, Mark has dedicated his life to advancing the cotton industry—from his family farm to the global stage. His leadership has helped shape state, national, and international policy, including serving as Chairman of the Cotton Board, the Cotton Foundation, and the Oklahoma Water Resources Board.

Dr. Miles Karner, a longtime Altus resident and former OSU Extension entomologist, has been posthumously inducted into the Oklahoma Cotton Hall of Fame.

Dr. Karner’s work shaped the future of Oklahoma agriculture- from playing a pivotal role in establishing Boll Weevil Eradication in the state to leading research in cotton pest management and transgenic technology. His commitment to science, education, and helping people lives on through an endowed scholarship in his name.

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Click here for more info and some pictures from the Oklahoma Cotton Council.

Consumer and business sentiment regarding the U.S. economic outlook continues to deteriorate after dropping sharply over the past few months. Rapidly worsening expectations about everything – from inflation and personal income to business and labor market conditions – are elevating concerns among business owners, investors and consumers alike.

So far, the hard data on key economic indicators like unemployment, job creation, weekly payrolls and consumer expenditures suggest the U.S. economy remains fairly strong. Even the recent stock market pullback is a symptom of flagging confidence about the future rather than a reflection of current business performance. The question on the minds of investors, businesses and corporate boards is whether the declining expectations will soon translate into slower spending and tightening profit margins.

According to a new quarterly report from CoBank’s Knowledge Exchange, the answer to that question will likely come into view by the end of June, if not sooner. Historic data suggests that declines in consumer spending begin to become apparent three to five months after a sharp decline in economic sentiment. Consumer spending accounts for about 70% of all U.S. economic activity.

Over 150 years ago, the Great Plains of the United States were scattered with cattle of Longhorn decent. The Kansas prairie was a place where cowboys and cattlemen called home. A Scottish cattlemen would soon homestead alongside them with a vision to make a lasting impression on the beef industry. Destined for George Grant’s farm, May 17, 1873, was the day his four Angus bulls arrived in America, marking the beginning of Angus genetics in the United States.

In celebration of this timestamp in the breed's history and its monumental impact on U.S. cattlemen, we invite you to take part in Angus Day of Giving on May 17th.

Each year we celebrate this special day to support the Legacy Sustaining Campaign.  This giving campaign encourages American Angus Association members to commit to a monthly gift of $12.50 in a collective effort to build long-term, sustaining support for the breed.

The farm safety net includes a number of risk management tools that help producers navigate the risks they face, ranging from the Federal Crop Insurance Program to Title 1 of the farm bill. With crop insurance, farmers purchase the coverage which typically protects against price and yield risk within the growing season. By contrast, Title 1 of the farm bill authorizes programs – Agriculture Risk Coverage (ARC) and Price Loss Coverage (PLC) in particular – that are designed to complement crop insurance, protecting against risks not otherwise covered. 

Because some of the programs have features in common, Congress has chosen to limit the choices available to producers. For example, the Supplemental Coverage Option (SCO) is an area-wide crop insurance policy that protects against county-wide losses in prices and yields (depending on the underlying policy) within the deductible portion of a producer’s crop insurance policy (i.e., the portion not covered by the underlying individual policy). In addition, in the 2014 Farm Bill, Congress created ARC, an FSA-administered program that protects against shallow losses in county-wide revenue. Because of the similarities between SCO and ARC, Congress stipulated that a producer was not eligible to purchase SCO on a crop enrolled in ARC. By contrast, a producer that enrolls the base acres on their farm in PLC – which covers deeper declines in marketing-year average prices – is permitted to purchase SCO at their discretion.

FMD in Central Europe- Hungary Farmers Struggling with Thousands of Cattle Being Culled

Hungary has suggested a "biological attack" as a possible source of the country's first foot-and-mouth disease outbreak in more than half a century, which has triggered border closures and the mass slaughter of cattle in the northwest, reported Reuters. 

Hungary reported a first case of foot-and-mouth disease in over 50 years on a cattle farm in the northwest near the border with Austria and Slovakia last month, the World Organisation for Animal Health said, citing Hungarian authorities.

Animal health authorities had made checks at nearly 1,000 farms across Hungary by Thursday, with only four in the affected northwestern region returning positive results.

"At this stage, we can say that it cannot be ruled out that the virus was not of natural origin, we may be dealing with an artificially engineered virus," Prime Minister Viktor Orban's chief of staff, Gergely Gulyas told a media briefing.

Responding to a question, Gulyas said he could not rule out that the virus outbreak was the result of a biological attack, without giving information on who might be responsible.

He also said that suspicion was based on verbal information received from a foreign laboratory and that their findings have not yet been fully proven and documented.