Howdy Neighbors!

Here's your morning farm news headlines from the Director of Farm Programming for the Radio Oklahoma Network, Ron Hays. We are pleased to have American Farmers & Ranchers Mutual Insurance Company as a regular sponsor of our daily update- click here to go to their AFR web site to learn more about their efforts to serve rural America!

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The current regulations on dust only allow for one violation per year to be in attainment, which the EPA is currently trying to allow for more violation opportunities says Thies. While this does sound odd, the EPA is trying to prevent putting areas with more dust spikes per year into non-attainment says Thies.

Thies says while the EPA wants to allow for the additional dust spikes, they are going to have to make the standards twice as stringent. And once the standards are made twice as stringent, it will be devastating for agriculture says Thies.

Our Beef Buzz programs are heard on many of our great radio stations across the region that are a part of the Radio Oklahoma Network. They can also be heard on our website- to see a full list of previous Beef Buzz reports, go to www.OklahomaFarmReport.Com and click on the Beef Buzz button on the left hand side of any page. Click on the LINK below for this Beef Buzz featuring Tamra Thies of NCBA.

Click here for more on the newest dust regulations and changes for agriculture

For our spring-planted crops, according to the USDA- "Dry soil moisture conditions continued to keep field work at a reduced pace, as seedbed preparations are behind normal for all small grains. Plowing of wheat ground was 86 percent complete and 26 percent of seedbeds were prepared by week's end. Rye ground plowed reached 87 percent complete and 18 percent of seedbeds were prepared by Sunday. Plowing of oat ground reached 91 percent complete with 28 percent of seedbeds prepared. Canola seedbed preparation reached 44 percent complete by the end of the week.

Crop conditions continued a downward slide showing no improvements. Crop conditions continued to be rated poor to very poor, with peanuts being the exception holding a rating of fair to good. Of the corn still in the fields, 92 percent reached the dent stage, 43 percent was mature and 22 percent had been harvested by week's end. Sorghum heading reached 63 percent complete, coloring reached 33 percent complete and 11 percent was mature by Sunday. Soybean blooming was 88 percent complete, and 58 percent were setting pods by week's end. Peanuts setting pods reached 70 percent by Sunday, 24 points behind normal. Cotton squaring was 94 percent complete, and 69 percent was setting bolls, significantly behind normal. Eleven percent of the cotton had reached boll opening by week's end."

Hay shortages and supplemental feeding continued across the state. Hay that is in the state has continued to be rated mostly very poor. Second cuttings of alfalfa reached 93 percent complete and third cuttings reached 38 percent complete, 60 points behind normal. First cuttings of other hay were 94 percent complete and the second cutting was only 17 percent complete by Sunday.

Click here for the complete Crop Weather Update as of Monday afternoon, August 29, 2011

The action singled out by Parker for praise was the redirecting of nearly $1 million in EPA clean water act section 319 funds (319) to Oklahoma for voluntary, cooperative conservation work in the North Canadian River/Oklahoma River Watershed and the Illinois River Watershed. These funds will go to supplement the ongoing effort by local conservation districts, the Oklahoma Conservation Commission and the USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) to work with agriculture producers and other landowners to establish best management practices to control non-point source pollution in water through voluntary, locally-led means.

These programs will continue the work already started in these watersheds to address non-point source pollution; work that in some cases has resulted in reductions of nutrients as high as 60% to 70% in certain areas and led to the delisting of several Oklahoma stream segments from the EPA list of streams that are impaired for nutrients, bacteria and sediment.

Click here for more information on the OACD and recent funds from the EPA

The next factor is corn prices. Feedlot ration costs are very close to a level where feeder cattle have to trade at even money to fed cattle in order to have a feedlot breakeven. This won't necessarily happen immediately, but over time, continued high prices of corn will limit feeder prices, especially at heavier weights. A spike in corn prices this fall could push feeder prices lower, not for normal seasonal reasons but lower nevertheless.

The third factor is the drought. The southern drought has changed both supply and demand prospects for the fall. The dry conditions at the current time limit any prospects for wheat pasture this fall and winter. Normally, this lack of demand is bearish to stocker prices. However, the drought has also caused significant early marketing of calves in the Southern Plains. There will likely be a significantly smaller fall run of calves, which may offset the lack of wheat pasture demand. Thus, it is not clear whether the net impact on prices will be positive or negative. My expectation at this time is for little or no seasonal price pressure on calves and stockers this fall beyond the pressure already noted on stocker prices in this region.

Click here for more factors that could change the cattle market from Dr. Derrell Peel

Among the rural electric cooperative utilities that will receive funding is the Anadarko, Oklahoma based Western Electric Farmers Cooperative- $184,100,000, to finance generation and transmission system improvement projects and new construction; to build 16 miles of new transmission line, and improve 18 miles of existing transmission line. .

Northeast Oklahoma Electric Cooperative, Inc., received a of $23.5 million loan to build or improve nearly 250 miles of distribution line and make other system improvements. The loan includes $1.2 million for automated metering.

The $900 million in loans announced today are provided by USDA Rural Development's Rural Utilities Service (RUS) to help electric utilities upgrade, expand, maintain and replace rural America's electric infrastructure. RUS funding will help build nearly 1,500 miles of line and improve more than 1,700 miles of existing line in rural areas. More than $19 million will finance smart grid technologies. USDA Rural Development also funds energy conservation and renewable energy projects.

Click here to see a complete list of the projects selected by the USDA.

When announcing the committee, Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack said, "USDA and the U.S. Trade Representative rely heavily on the individuals who serve on these committees to provide their expert advice on U.S. trade policy and priorities."

Schroeder owns and operates Schroeder Farms in Frederick, Okla., and is currently the Executive Director of the Oklahoma Cotton Council. He was nominated for this position by the National Farmers Union (NFU), at the request of American Farmers & Ranchers/Oklahoma Farmers Union.

Click here for more information on the upcoming work of this USDA Committee

We don't expect a dollar figure to come out of this meeting as to the impact of the Oklahoma drought to this point as we saw released a few days ago in Texas- $5.2 billion in drought losses to agriculture in that state (and rising). OSU Ag Economists are working on a number and we anticipate that will be released in another couple of weeks. As much as anything, this meeting will be discussing how to work through these harsh conditions- and remain as whole as possible- both mentally and economically. Click here for our Ron_on_RON tweet stream to keep up on the meeting as it unfolds.

Oklahoma Farm Bureau Board Member Rodd Moesel tells us via Facebook that he and other Oklahoma Ag Leaders had a chance to interact with the Chairman of the House Ag Committee Frank Lucas yesterday about what needs to be a part of the 2012 farm bill. Rodd writes "Congressman Lucas spent several hours with a number of Oklahoma Ag leaders today to discuss the issues & share ideas! Thanks for the chance to put in my 2 cents!"

Lucas faces tough decisions as he deals with the Super Committee and others who will want to tell his Committee how to structure farm policy as they try to do "a la carte" budget cuts on farm programs- changing farm policy by pulling funding from various elements that have significant dollars attached to them. A game changing announcement came this past Friday that we reported to you yesterday- the National Cotton Council backing away from whole hearted support of Direct Farm Payments in a farm policy statement. Colleagues of ours that we discuss these things with agree- this appears to be folding your poker hand before you even have the cards dealt to you.

Check out our Morning Farm News from today as we recall what Congressman Lucas told us last week on Direct Payments- BEFORE the National Cotton Council seemingly backed away from them.

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.