From: Ron Hays [ron@oklahomafarmreport.com]
Sent: Friday, July 27, 2007 06:39
To: ron@oklahomafarmreport.com
Subject: Oklahoma's Farm News Update
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Oklahoma's latest farm and ranch news
Your Update from Ron Hays of RON for Friday July 27, 2007!
A service of Midwest Farm Shows
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-- Pure Politics- Democrats say Yes & Republicans say No!
-- Lucas helps carry the banner Against the Ron Kind Fairness Amendment.
-- South Korea Delays as US Meat Packers Shoot Themselves in the Foot- AGAIN!
-- Bryan and Choctaw Counties both Confirmed for Asian Soybean Rust
-- Oklahoma Cattlemen's Association Convention In Road Gear!
-- What Does $25 buy you? Lunch and Choose a Subject- Biofuels or Beef Cattle
-- Check out the Coyote!!!

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 recently concluded Southern Plains Farm Show in Oklahoma City, 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.

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.


Pure Politics- Democrats say Yes & Republicans say No!
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Earlier this week, it was a love fest- yesterday evening, it looked and sounded like an ugly divorce as HR 2419 came to the floor of the US House with Chairman Colin Peterson defending how the House Ways and Means Committee wants to pay for more Nutrition programs in this country- Democrats calling it closing a loophole in existing tax policy while Republicans calling it a tax increase. The Republicans claim they liked the bill up to the moment of the Ways and Means decision but now stand in opposition to the measure.

The general debate on the proposal took place last night after the Rules Committee report that allowed debate as well as the "offset" from the Ways and Means Committee proved to be so controversial. The Democrats who spoke all praised Chairman Colin Peterson for his work to craft this measure and could not understand why the Republicans were letting the method of payment get in the way of their support of this measure.

Ranking Minority Member of the Committee and former Chairman Bob Goodlatte of Virginia says that he was among the supporters of the Farm Bill when it passed out of Committee last week, but that in the last twenty four hours when the method of payment became known for the extra nutrition spending, he felt betrayed and could not go along with the Democrats. He says that even if it comes out of the House successfully, it is a wounded duck and that it is ripe for a Presidential veto if the current language should make it to the President's Desk. He added that the one caveat that he had stated and restated multiple times during the debate was his support would be there as long as there were no tax increases as Democrats looked for money to pay for any and all new ideas. We have a complete AUDIO overview of the events of last night on the debate of the bill itself- and it is located on our Farm Bill webpage on WWW.OklahomaFarmReport.Com. Go to that page and scroll down to that report- you'll hear Peterson, Goodlatte, Rangel and Lucas with their comments from the floor debate of the 2007 Farm Bill. AND, we will be updating it as the day wears on and work on the amendments ends and we near a final vote.

Click here for our web page on the Farm Bill Debate- and check back- we will be updating as needed!


Lucas helps carry the banner Against the Ron Kind Fairness Amendment.
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Actually the Kind/Flake Amendment that would highjack farm policy direction from the Ag Committee and dictate policy was relegated to "sideshow" status last night- in the shadow of the tax increase versus tax loophole argument that dominated the evening's general farm bill debate. And at the end of debate on this measure when we got a final vote- it turned out to be a no contest issue- losing badly- 117 in favor and 309 against.

The Kind proposal was blasted by Chairman Colin Peterson- calling it a clone of Freedom to Farm. Marion Berry of Arkansas pointed out that the Kind/Flake Amendment had no one from the House Ag Committee speaking in favor of it and the take home message from both sides of aisle from the Ag Committee members is that the Kind/Flake measure totally upsets the balance crafted by the House Ag Committee.

Congressman Frank Lucas of Oklahoma spoke forcefully against the Kind Amendment, saying adoption of this measure would destroy the farm safety net and place family farming and rural America in jeopardy. Perhaps the strongest comments made in opposition to the measure came from the always fiesty Earl Pomeroy of North Dakota- his district is the entire state! Pomeroy took exception to Jeff Flake's description of family farmers as being like grown children living in the basement of their Uncle Sam.

On our Farm Bill webpage, we have an audio overview of the Kind Amendment discussion boiled down for you. Click on the link below and take a listen- it was a most interesting conversation on the floor of the House last night.

Click here for an audio overview of the Kind/Flake Debate


South Korea Delays as US Meat Packers Shoot Themselves in the Foot- AGAIN!
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Swift and Cargill have slipped up and sent more bone in short ribs to South Korea- BY MISTAKE- and the entire process of getting US beef back into South Korea without restrictions will be paying the price of further delays by South Korea to fully meet OIE standards for beef from countries that are "controlled risk" in BSE Status.

Mark Klein, spokesman for Cargill Meat Solutions, told Meatingplace.com that South Korea has temporarily suspended imports from Cargill's beef plant in Schuyler, Neb., after discovering the box of ribs - part of a 22,900-pound shipment - that was mislabeled. "Our review indicates simple human error - the bone- in beef short ribs were placed in a box that was labeled boneless beef short ribs," he said, adding that Swift sent Korean quarantine officials a letter explaining the mishap. "We will review procedures with our employees to make sure this is addressed in the future." Swift has not commented on the problems found at their Greeley, Colorado plant as of yet.

Meanwhile, talks toward easing South Korea's import restrictions on U.S. beef have been delayed following these latest two packages of banned U.S. bone-in beef, an official said. Kim Chang-seob, the Agriculture Ministry's chief veterinary officer, told Yonhap News that Washington must first explain why the rib-filled packages were sent and assure that the mistake won't be repeated. "Seoul must review the explanations and assurances offered by the United States before it can officially proceed with any bilateral beef talks," Kim said. The South Korea officials indicated to Yonhap News that they had been ready to sit down with US officials in August to have final negotiations to fully reopen their market to US beef- boneless and/or bone-in, but that this latest problem delays those negotiations until South Korea is satisfied with the explanations offered by the U.S.

Click here for a story on the momentum that is present in South Korea regarding US beef being sold- a good reason not to be making bonehead mistakes with shipments.


Bryan and Choctaw Counties both Confirmed for Asian Soybean Rust
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USDA has now confirmed Asian Soybean Rust in the state of Oklahoma as the disease has traveled across Texas and jumped the Red River into Choctaw and Bryan Counties. OSU Plant Pathologist Dr. John Damicone says that he first found rust spores on a single leaf from a Sentinel Plot in Bryan County on July 13. It took USDA over a week to confirm that result. Oklahoma is the eighth state this year to have a case or cases of Asian Soybean Rust confirmed.

Damicone says that once that leaf was discovered, he traveled to southeastern Oklahoma and checked lots of fields and found up to twenty percent of that Sentinel Plot infested with the Rust, while the commercial field found in Choctaw has perhaps one percent infection.

The OSU Plant Pathologist fully expects Asian Soybean Rust to move northward as the growing season continues. Late planted soybeans are the fields most susceptible to this disease that has blown into the United States from South America. We talked Thursday afternoon with John Damicone and have that conversation linked below.

Click here to listen to Ron and John Damicone talk Soybean Rust Arriving in Oklahoma.


Oklahoma Cattlemen's Association Convention In Road Gear!
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It's a new venue but cattle producers seem to like the new surroundings for their 55th Annual Convention being held this year at the Reed Center in Midwest City. Today is their full day of activities from first thing this morning through their annual banquet this evening.

One of the featured speakers this morning is Jim Link of the US Department of Agriculture who has oversight over areas like Animal ID. Later in the day is the always popular Cattlemen's College put together by the OSU Animal Science Department. Folks like Glen Selk, David Lahman and Chris Richards will offer a variety of rapid fire presentations to help address some of the hot production questions here in 2007.

Saturday morning, the cattlemen hope to hear from Congressman Frank Lucas on how the farm bill debate has gone, to be followed by the annual market outlook offered by the OCA- this year the crystal ball report coming from Dr. James Mintert of Kansas State University. We have comments linked below from the outgoing President of the Oklahoma Cattlemen's Association, Jim Birdwell of Fletcher as we chat with Jim about the mood of cattle producers at this year's meeting and some of the issues being dealt with at this 2007 event.

Click here to listen to Ron's Conversation with Jim Birdwell of the Oklahoma Cattlemen's Association


What Does $25 buy you? Lunch and Choose a Subject- Biofuels or Beef Cattle
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Two events coming up in early August will cost you $25 as a registration fee, that will buy you a lunch plus lots of information in one of two areas. The first of these events is a Biofuels workshop being put on at the Oklahoma City campus location for Langston on N. Lincoln Blvd. on Friday, August 3, 2007.

Practical information on producing and using alternative energy resources such as biofuels along with information about on-farm energy conservation and biofuel research in Oklahoma are some of the topics to be covered. One featured speaker will be farmer Wayne Keith of Alabama who will describe his wood burning pickup- he says he gets about 3,000 miles to a cord of wood! Oklahoma producer Thad Doye will be another of the presenters at this event as he will describe his efforts of raising an oilseed crop on his farm near Duncan- Sunflowers- and then turning that into a biofuel to run his farming operation- all right there on the farm.

The second event that will cost you $25 and will provide you a full day of information on the beef cattle industry is the Noble Foundation's Southern Plains Beef Symposium, set for Saturday, August 11 in Ardmore. They have a top notch set of speakers from four states covering the world of Beef Cattle Production- and besides lunch, your registration fee also gives you access to visit with several dozen folks that will be a part of their one day trade show.

We have links to both of these events in our August section of our Calendar on our Website- Click here to head there.


Check out the Coyote!!!
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We are proud of the many great radio stations that we work with on the Radio Oklahoma Network. We are especially proud to have Wright Radio in Weatherford on our team, which includes KWEY AM and FM in Clinton/Weatherford, as well as news talk KCLI AM in Clinton.

Throughout the day, you get great country music and our farm and rancher news and markets on KWEY, the Coyote, while several times a day, you can catch our agri news updates on the talk show format of KCLI, AM 1320.

We have a link below that you can take a look at which tells you when to listen for Ron Hays and Ed Richards on KWEY and KCLI- and we appreciate you asking your local radio station if they have Ron on RON. If they don't, ask them to consider our radio reports- they are the best to be found!

Click here for details on our reports on the Coyote, KWEY AM & FM, Weatherford/Clinton!!!


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 and make plans to be an exhibitor at either the Tulsa Farm Show this December or the Southern Plains Farm Show next spring!

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



God Bless! You can reach us at the following:
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phone: 405-473-6144
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