Howdy Neighbors!

Here's your morning farm news headlines from the Director of Farm Programming for the Radio Oklahoma Network, Ron Hays. Our email this morning is a service of Midwest Farm Shows, featuring the Southern Plains Farm Show in Oklahoma City April 19-21, 2007, as well as the Tulsa Farm Show held each December. Check out details of both of these exciting shows at the official website of Midwest Farm Shows by clicking here.

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As we take a look at the current forecasts around our state and just west of our Panhandle, it looks like Boise City may get four or five inches of snow from this storm- and over in northeastern New Mexico, places like Raton are looking at seven to ten inches of the white stuff.

Here in the state, we have already seen three to six tenths of an inch of rain fall in west central counties (Beckham, Roger Mills, Custer and Washita) with more in the forecast. The hope is that as the system tracks further east- it will bring rain to the dry north central counties in our state. The National Weather Service tells us that the warmer air should keep freezing precipitation away from most folks this go round.

Click here for the Oklahoma Mesonet for their current weather maps- this shows current temps across the state.

The NCBA's release says "after reviewing hundreds of pages outlining the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) final rule on fugitive dust, the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association (NCBA) has decided to challenge the rule in court. NCBA filed a petition today in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit seeking review of EPA’s air quality standards that regulate agricultural dust."

“On livestock operations, dust is produced by tilling soil, planting and harvesting crops, driving on dirt roads, spreading nutrients on fields, mixing feed, and by cattle simply moving around in feedlots. These are examples of the dust that that would be regulated under a coarse PM NAAQS,” says Tamara Thies, NCBA’s director of environmental issues. “Many farms and ranches are simply unable to control dust to the level EPA requires, even when using best management practices. The EPA has put agriculture in an impossible situation, with no scientific justification.”

The good news is that Mark believes that Paul appears to be better than what he has seen him over the last couple of months. He continues to battle a blood based infection as well as diabetes, and has a long road of recovery still ahead of him.

No visitors is still the rule for him, but if you would like to drop Paul a card of encouragement- you can add to his wall of cards that are already there right in front of his bed- you might send those cards to Paul in care of the Oklahoma Wheat Commission- that address:
Paul Jackson
Oklahoma Wheat Commission
800 NE 63rd
Oklahoma City, Ok 73105.

The regular monthly board meeting of the Oklahoma Wheat Commission is planned for Wednesday morning at the OWC offices in Oklahoma City. The OWC continues to operate with their belt very tight after half a normal wheat crop was harvested this past summer.

U.S. officials point out that Congress will have nothing to do with a FTA with South Korea until they see the U.S. Beef Industry satisfied with a resolution over the Korean ban on U.S. beef. Korean inspectors seem to be willing to decimate any beef shipment that arrives in their country until they discover any miniscule beef fragment, which then disqualifies the entire shipment.

There were apparently some additional FTA talks that were supposed to happen this week. When Seoul refused to have the beef issue added to the agenda for this week's talks, Washington canceled the scheduled meetings, Korean officials told an Asian wire service. Korea refuses to tie the beef dispute into trade talks, arguing that the dispute is a public health issue, not a trade issue. A representative with the U.S. Trade Ambassador's office reports that while beef may not technically be on the FTA agenda, it is highly unlikely that Congress will accept any deal unless the beef issue is resolved first. There are many other thorny issues, ranging from rice to automobiles, but beef has become a touchstone for many in the Senate.

Murphy adds that the real bottom line for exports is that fifteen years ago- we were the world's largest net importer of pork in the world- the U.S. today is the second largest pork exporter globally.

There are challenges- but Steve Murphy says they are working on meeting them head on- and you can hear his comments about the state of the pork industry in a conversation that we had with Steve in recent days by clicking on the link below.

Click here for Ron's conversation with Steve Murphy of the National Pork Board.

Check with the auction market you do business with as they all are likely very close to being done for 2006- if you need to move some cattle for tax reasons- that will likely need to be done this week.

We will have daily E- mails for you the balance of his week- and will take Christmas Day off- then four final reports for the old year next Tuesday through Friday. In the meantime- our wish for you and yours is a happy and holy holiday season!!!

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