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~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Oklahoma's latest farm and ranch news
Your Update from Ron Hays of RON for Tuesday January 16,
2007! A
service of Midwest Farm Shows
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
-- All Shut Down
-- Early Registration Deadline for Commodity Classic is
Tomorrow!
-- Oklahomans bringing home several National Western trophies!
-- With the Ethanol Explosion- Food for Thought (and Charity) is now
more expensive!
-- Speaking of Ethanol- another wild day for the commodity futures
ahead!
-- Congrats to Jeramy Rich- new Executive Director of the Oklahoma
Youth Expo
-- More Beef Buzzing with Monte Reese
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. Our E-mail the next few days is also being sponsored by Laura's Lean Beef- Laura's Lean Beef Co., a natural beef provider based in Lexington, KY, will hold a gathering 10:00 am Jan 24 at the Heart of Oklahoma Exposition Center in Shawnee, Ok to introduce local producers to the benefits of raising the lean, heavily muscled cattle that will perform well on Laura's bonus grids. For more information on this meeting- you can can e-mail Beth Whiteford at bwhiteford@LLBcorp.com. Or click here to be taken to their web site for more producer information on Laura's Lean Beef! If you have received this by someone forwarding it to you, you are welcome to subscribe and get this weekday update sent to you directly by clicking here. | |
All Shut Down ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ The Oklahoma
National Stockyards was one of several livestock auction markets that had
to cancel their Monday sales this week. In a statement issued by the
Federal-State Market News folks, they cited the three days of ice, sleet
and snow that has shut down livestock movement.
Even harder hit than Central Oklahoma is the Eastern areas of our state. Thousands remain without power as power lines weighed down with the ice snapped poles while many trees were split apart by the frozen H2O. We tried calling the McAlester Stockyards just after 6 am this morning- and found no-one there on a sale day- which means they will likely not have an auction this week- again because of it being almost impossible to move cattle from the country to town. Another casualty of the ice and snow is this week's session of Class 13 of the Oklahoma Ag Leadership Program. They were slated to go to southern Oklahoma and spend time at the Noble Foundation and visit several farms in the region- but Executive Director Dr. Joe Williams says those people have other problems right now they need to address- plus he did not want Class members to be away from their operations as folks attempt to clean up the mess in many locales from this most recent winter storm. | |
Early Registration Deadline for Commodity Classic is Tomorrow! ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Bounty on the
Bay is the theme of the 2007 Commodity Classic- and more Oklahomans than
ever before may attend this year's Classic as the National Association of
Wheat Growers is joining with the American Soybean Association and the
National Corn Growers Association to host this year's Classic.
The dates for the event this year is March 1-3- and the date to keep in mind right now is that tomorrow, January 17th is the deadline for early registration and their least expensive registration charge. You'll save twenty dollars by registering either today or tomorrow. There may be some members of the Oklahoma Farmers Union that may want to take in both the Commodity Classic as well as the National Farmers Union Convention that will be held March 2nd through the 5th, as that meeting is planned for Orlando this year. NFU's first session is usually a Friday night session, so some may choose to go and be a part of the Commodity Classic activities Thursday and most of the day Friday, before driving from Tampa to Orlando for the NFU gathering. We have linked below the Commodity Classic website if you want further details. | |
Oklahomans bringing home several National Western trophies! ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ The open class
beef breed shows at the 2007 National Western Livestock Show continue- and
several Oklahoma breeders have done very well up in the Mile High City.
The Grand Champion Polled Hereford Bull was shown by Star Lake Cattle
Ranch of Skiatook- and they also won the Premier Breeder Award in the
Polled Hereford competition. Star Lake also won the Grand Champion Carload
honors in the Hereford breed.
Express Ranches out of Yukon did well in both the Angus and Limousin breeds. Express claimed the Grand Champion Limousin Bull Rosette, as well as the Grand Champion Bull and Female honors in the Lim-Flex category. In the Angus breed, they won the Get of Sire Award and the Grand Champion Carload Bull contest. The Pen of 3 Bulls contest in the Angus breed was dominated by the Rolling 3R Ranch out of Edmond, winning the Grand Champion and Reserve Grand in that competition. In the Junior breeding show- the Grand Champion Polled Hereford female was shown by Mark Cameron Sims of Elgin, while the Reserve Champion Horned Hereford female is owned and shown by Jackson Alexander of Anadarko. Speaking of the Junior events- the market animal competition is well underway- and will culminate Friday evening with the sale of their top animals in the Premium Auction. | |
With the Ethanol Explosion- Food for Thought (and Charity) is now more expensive! ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Livestock
producers have voiced their concerns with the potential impacts of
increasing ethanol demand - but demand for ethanol is reportedly having an
impact on some of the world's poorest people as well. In fact - it appears
increased corn prices mean the government's budget won't buy as much food
for aid as it used to.
As a result - the organizations that distribute food donated by the U.S. expect to deliver less food to places like Africa and Latin America. For instance - Catholic Relief Services only expects to deliver 161- thousand tons this year - after distributing 200- thousand tons in 2006. The World Food Program of the United Nations - the biggest global distributor of food aid - is also feeling the pinch caused by demand for crops to make biofuels. The program reportedly paid 37-percent more for Argentine soybean oil and 33-percent more for Malaysian palm oil last year. | |
Speaking of Ethanol- another wild day for the commodity futures ahead! ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Actually, we
have already seen a glimpse of that in the overnight electronic trading at
the Chicago Board of Trade. Overnight, the corn futures for the two nearby
contracts were locked limit up- twenty cents per bushel higher- after the
limit up performance on the corn market last Friday before the MLK holiday
weekend.
There were reports that up to 90,000 buy orders remained in the pipeline after the market closed on Friday- as commodity funds have decided to rotate into the grains in a major way. The big reason, of course, is the continued rapid drawdown of corn stocks in this country- USDA now thinks that the current marketing year will see ending stocks of corn at just 752 million bushels- well under the some two billion bushels we have had as ending stocks in recent seasons. One thing the market is trying to do as corn prices rise is to buy more acres for corn planting in 2007- and that is expected to happen. The question is- will there be enough high quality corn seed available? Jerry Harrington with Pioneer says that "We expect to have enough seed for demand, but some growers who haven't ordered early, they may not get their first choice." Here in 2007, it's clearly a corn seed sellers market. | |
Congrats to Jeramy Rich- new Executive Director of the Oklahoma Youth Expo ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ It's now
official as Jeramy Rich, former Executive Director of the Oklahoma
Independent Oil Producers Association has left that group and will be
taking over the reins of the Oklahoma Youth expo, stepping into the role
left vacant by the death of Justin Whitefield late this past year.
Rich steps into this position with the Youth Expo on a tear- with scholarships and prizes to Youth from across the state at an all time high- right at a million dollars this past year. There will be some challenges this year as construction at the State Fair Park means that the carefully coordinated schedule has been overhauled this year- with the Sheep show being moved to the first weekend of the event. We have linked to the website of the Youth Expo below- and you can find out more by browsing through the various updates that are on it. We will be catching up with Rich in the near future and be doing an interview with him to talk about these changes in the Expo- as well as some of the challenges of the business of junior livestock shows in general. | |
More Beef Buzzing with Monte Reese ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Today, we
continue our conversation with Monte Reese of the Cattlemen's Beef
Promotion Board on the Beef Buzz, heard on many of our Radio Oklahoma
Network stations- and available on our website as well- just hit the "Beef
Buzz" button on the left hand side of our home page- that address is
www.oklahomafarmreport.com. We also have the audio for today's report
linked below.
Today we talk with Monte about research efforts that are now being worked on- and will be discussed during the upcoming meetings of the CBB during the Cattle Industry Convention and Trade Show in Nashville the very end of this month into early February. Specifically- we talk Kid Friendly Beef Food and better utilization of ground beef- check it out. | |
Our thanks to Midwest Farm Shows for their support of our daily Farm News Update. Go to their website at the link at the top of today's email for more information on either the Tulsa Farm Show or the Southern Plains Farm Show. 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. | |
God Bless! You can reach us at the following: ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
email: ron@oklahomafarmreport.com
phone: 405-473-6144
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