Oklahoma's Latest Farm and Ranch News

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There was another step forward unveiled by the wheat industry in the effort to commercialize biotech wheat. At the winter wheat industry meetings in Washington the last few days, it was announced by the Wheat Industry Biotech Council that they have retained a communications and public relations firm to help develop the message that the industry will carry forward to potential customers, end users and even opponents in the next several years. The firm retained by the WIBC is Global Prairie, a group that has offices in several mid america locations, including Kansas City, Ft. Worth and Denver.

Caitlan Coffrin with the group made a presentation to the US Wheat- National Association of Wheat Growers Joint Committee Session on Friday, and spoke of how the group would be helping the players in the wheat business work to develop a unified message on genetically engineered wheat, educate the industry regarding that message and then enter a phase of moblization, where that message would be taken beyond just the wheat industry, to other stakeholders that will determine the success or failure of biotech wheat.

Click here for our full story on where we stand right now with biotech wheat- including an audio report with comments from Alan Tracy of US Wheat and Jane Demarchi of the National Association of Wheat Growers- providing us a look into where the wheat industry hopes to go in getting acceptance for GM wheat. 

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While in Washington for the winter wheat industry meetings, we sat down in the offices of the American Farm Bureau and talked at length with AFBF lobbyist Mary Kay Thatcher- and we covered just a small amount of the waterfront on policy and regulatory issues that confront the general farm organization that she represents in our nation's capitol. We began our visit with Thatcher discussing the AFBF farm policy that evolved out of the group's recent convention held in Hawaii. From there, we talked about a multitude of other issues- including:

- The status of a budget score on the Farm Bureau farm policy proposal- Thatcher says nothing yet- but hoping to get it scored after January budget baseline numbers are released this coming week.

- Mary Kay Thatcher believes if Farm Bureau's proposal became a key part of the 2012 Commodity title- crop farmers would see cheaper crop insurance premiums going forward.

- Opponents of farm program spending in Washington have grown stronger since the writing of the 2008 farm bill.

- Thatcher expressed skepticism about the ability to move forward in this election year and complete a farm bill.

To read more or hear more about Mary Kay Thatcher's views on policy and regulatory issues, click here. 

Pioneer Hi-Bred, a DuPont business, is releasing 17 new Pioneer® brand Optimum® AQUAmaxTM hybrids in the 96- to 116-day comparative relative maturities (CRMs) for drought-stressed environments, helping growers match the right product with the right acre.

Combined with products already introduced last year, Optimum AQUAmax hybrids offer 25 total hybrid choices for growers in the 2012 planting season.

During a drought-stressed 2011 growing season, the first class of Optimum AQUAmax hybrids provided strong yields compared to competitive hybrids. In nearly 8,000 on-farm trials, Optimum AQUAmax hybrids yielded 7.1 percent higher in drought conditions and 3.4 percent higher in favorable weather conditions than competitors.* Growers can expect similar results from the new class of hybrids.

"Optimum AQUAmax hybrids delivered strong yields for growers in a trying year," says Monica Patterson, Pioneer marketing manager. "Hybrids performed well in areas of drought as well as geographies that encountered adequate moisture throughout the growing season."

Optimum AQUAmax hybrids are equipped with strong agronomics and the latest technology package. Drought tolerance is controlled by a large number of genes and heavily influenced by environmental factors (for example, heat, water stress, soil types). There is no one single solution for drought tolerance. 

To read more about Pioneer's new hybrids, click here.

The latest USDA Cattle Inventory report is out today, January 27, 2012 and showed more herd decline as was expected in pre-report estimates. The numbers showed cattle inventory down 2 percent. This report is seen as not having a huge impact since there was no big surprises and could even be supportive to the market Monday morning. You can hear Tom Leffler of Leffler Commodities analysis of USDA's Cattle Inventory report by clicking on the listening bar at the bottom of the page.

   
All cattle and calves in the United States as of January 1, 2012 totaled 90.8 million head, 2 percent below the 92.7 million on January 1, 2011. This is the lowest January 1 inventory of all cattle and calves since the 88.1 million on hand in 1952.

All cows and heifers that have calved, at 39.1 million, were down 2 percent from the 40.0 million on January 1, 2011

. * Beef cows, at 29.9 million, were down 3 percent from January 1, 2011.

For Oklahoma- the numbers clearly showed the impact of the historic drought we battled over this past year. Inventory of all cattle and
calves in Oklahoma, at 4.50 million head, was down 600 thousand head from the January 1, 2011 inventory. This is the
lowest inventory of all cattle and calves since 1968. All cows and
heifers that had calved, at 1.78 million head, were down 14 percent.
This is the lowest inventory for all cows and heifers since 1961. The
January 1, 2012, beef cow inventory, at 1.73 million head, is the lowest since 1962.

To read more about January cattle inventories, click here.

As the presidential campaign season heats up, one issue that is sure to gain more and more traction is the growth in food stamp rolls.

According to the USDA's own numbers, more than 46 million American's will receive food stamps this year. That's 15 percent of the country's population. That's 45 percent higher than when President Obama took office and more than twice as high as the average for the previous 40 years.

Many economists attribute the surge in food stamp recipients to the recession, but part of the program's growth was an increase in supplemental nutrition benefits pushed as part of President Obama's stimulus plan approved by Congress.

In an article published by Investor's Business Daily, John Merline argues that the dependency of the public on government programs in general has been increasing since President Lyndon Johnson's "Great Society" programs of the 1960s. Merline says that trend has rapidly accelerated since President Obama took office.

To read more about skyrocketing food stamp rolls and their impact on farm policy, click here.
 

Over time, the average size of beef cows has increased by 200 pounds or more. To keep up with feed costs-even today's feed costs-that just means she needs to wean 50 more pounds of calf, according to South Dakota State University animal scientist Ken Olson.

He says big does not always mean inefficient. In 1990 the average cow weighed 1,200 pounds. Now the average is 1,400.

Olson studied the amount of feed consumed by cows weaning calves at different weights. His calculations showed that older formulas which based weaning weights on a ratio between the weight of the cow and the calf are not economically efficient.

Olson says his numbers show that if a 1,200-pound cow weans a 500-pound calf, a 1,400-pound cow needs to wean a 550-pound calf for maximum efficiency.

To hear the full interview with Ken Olson, click here.

The 2012 Cattle Industry Convention and Trade Show opens in just a couple of days from now at the Gaylord Opryland Hotel and Convention Center in Nashville, Tennessee. It appears that there will be an excellent group of Oklahoma Cattle producers who will be there later this week.

The meeting will feature joint and individual meetings by five industry organizations:

National Cattlemen's Beef Association
Cattlemen's Beef Promotion & Research Board
American National CattleWomen, Inc.
CattleFax
National Cattlemen's Foundation

On today's special digital version of the Beef Buzz, we have Scott Dewald of the Oklahoma Cattlemen's Association talking to us and providing a preview of the 2012 meetings- as we talk about Oklahomans who will be involved, including Tammi Didlot, who will be installed as the President of the American National Cattlewomen. We also talked with Scott about key issues that will be talked about both in the hallways as well as in the meeting rooms

Click here to jump over to our interview/conversation with Scott Dewald to get a feel about what is ahead in Nashville this year. We will be covering this year's activities once again- and will do so in several ways.  We will have regular radio updates on the Radio Oklahoma Ag Network- we will be posting stories on our website, wwww.OklahomaFarmReport.Com, we will have stories right here in our daily email and we will be "tweeting" a bunch- follow us on twitter- our "handle" is Ron_on_RON.

 

Later this morning, wheat industry leaders from several states- including Oklahoma- will be meeting with the three members of the Surface Transportation Board about rail transportation concerns within the wheat industry. 

The agency has jurisdiction over railroad rate and service issues- and some of the issues that the wheat industry leadership want to bring up include higher rates than they feel are justified in areas where there is no competition from multiple rail lines as well as adequate service during harvest season.  All five board members of the Oklahoma Wheat Commission will be a part of the meetings with Chairman Daniel Elliott, Vice Chair Francis Mulvey and Board member Ann Begeman.

Also- this week- a large number of farm organizations will be meeting in Washington on Tuesday and Wednesday- hearing from several experts about where we are on the budget ahead of drafting the next farm bill- as well as a feel of what is politically doable in this election year.  Those groups will each present their current ideas and then the hope is to figure our where the common ground is among the groups.  There is also hope that there will be less disagreement being seen publicly among the groups as a result of these sessions.   

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