~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Oklahoma's latest farm and ranch news
Your Update from Ron Hays of RON for Monday August 4, 2008!
A
service of American Farmers & Ranchers, Johnston Enterprises and
National Livestock Credit!
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-- Congress Adjourns For Month Recess- Frank Lucas Says He'll Stay on
the Phone with USDA.
-- The WHY of the Market- and the HOW of Survival- Dr. David
Anderson.
-- The Best One Day Cattle Conference in America- the Southern Plains
Beef Symposium.
-- Do You Wanna Grow Certified Seed?
-- Coppock Goes Down Under Talking Biotech in Wheat.
-- NASS Looking for Your Response.
-- The Calendar is Crowded- Including the big Futures Farms
Conference that Kicks off Tomorrow!
-- Looking at our Agricultural Markets...
Howdy Neighbors! Here's your morning farm news headlines from the Director of Farm Programming for the Radio Oklahoma Network, Ron Hays. We are proud to have National Livestock Credit Corporation as a regular sponsor of our daily email update. National Livestock Credit Corporation works diligently to provide unsurpassed service to their customers in the area of livestock financing. Check out the National Livestock Family of Services website by clicking here. We are also pleased to have as a regular sponsor on our daily email
Johnston Enterprises- proud to have served agriculture across
Oklahoma and around the world since 1893. For more on Johnston
Enterprises- click
here for their website! 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. | |
Congress Adjourns For Month Recess- Frank Lucas Says He'll Stay on the Phone with USDA. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ The reason
that Oklahoma Third District Congressman Frank Lucas is planning on
staying in touch with USDA officials this week is to urge USDA to expand
the more liberal forage utilization plan for CRP acres they announced on
Friday. Agriculture Secretary Ed Schafer announced that producers in
counties approved for emergency haying and grazing on Conservation Reserve
Program (CRP) land because of drought will have rental payments cut by 10
percent instead of the standard 25 percent. To date, that includes
counties in Colorado, Kansas, Montana, North Dakota, Oklahoma and Texas.
At this point, Lucas says he understands that only Cimarron County qualifies for this offer- but he is hopeful that we might see this program expanded further to allow more counties in the state have this opportunity. This is not as lucrative a program as offered under the Critical Feed Use program which was closed to any new applications by a Washington state judge about a week ago. Besides, discussing this program- we talked energy, rural electric,
farm bill implementation and market transparency with the Roger Mills
County rancher after he spoke on Saturday at the 2008 Oklahoma Cattlemen's
Association Convention in Midwest City- our event coverage from there
brought to you in part by Hudson
Livestock Supplements. Click here to jump to our OklahomaFarmReport conversation with Congressman Frank Lucas. | |
The WHY of the Market- and the HOW of Survival- Dr. David Anderson. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ We talked
extensively with Texas A&M market economist Dr. David Anderson as he
was getting ready to speak to the OCA Convention's Saturday morning
session in Midwest City.
Dr. Anderson feels like the stocker operator will have a chance to thrive in the current cattle market environment as the market is signaling that pounds of gain from forage are valuable as fewer days in the feedlot are being dictated by those same signals. At the same time- he sees the current cow calf producer facing
transition in their operations and he says that perhaps cow calf folks may
need to "hunker down" as that might describe how they will need to
approach this time of moving into a higher price for inputs and react to
the different market signals we are now seeing. Click here for more with Dr. David Anderson of Texas A&M in College Station. | |
The Best One Day Cattle Conference in America- the Southern Plains Beef Symposium. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ The Samuel
Roberts Noble Foundation's Agricultural Division and Oklahoma Cooperative
Extension Service will host the 18th Annual Southern Plains Beef Symposium
from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m., Saturday, Aug. 9, at the Ardmore Convention Center
in Ardmore, Okla. Entitled Coping with the Times, Higher Cost and Tighter
Margins, this year's symposium brings together four speakers from Oklahoma
and Missouri, who will discuss how they and other farmers and ranchers are
coping with the challenges of increased input costs related to the higher
cost of energy.
"The Southern Plains Beef Symposium is an excellent one day event for beef producers to gain insight and information into current issue and production situations," said Shan Ingram, the Noble Foundation's Education and Special Projects Manager. "We are fortunate to have good sponsors and partners who help with the symposium, which allow us to bring a quality, national-level program to our agricultural producers." One of the key morning speakers is Scott Brown, program director for the Food and Agriculture Policy Research Institute (FAPRI) at the University of Missouri. Brown has provided U.S. Congress with analysis of livestock and dairy policy changes and has testified before the House and Senate. FAPRI was recognized by the United States Department of Agriculture for the analysis conducted for the 2002 farm bill. The rest of the program is also top notch-plus they always offer an excellent trade show for the day- and the lunch is always terrific. We have more details of the Southern Plains Beef Symposium linked below- we'll be emceeing the Morning Session once again here in 2008 and we look forward to seeing you in Ardmore on Saturday! | |
Do You Wanna Grow Certified Seed? ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ If this of
interest to you- you need to check out the latest newsletter from the OSU
Department of Plant and Soil Sciences. That's their lead article for this
latest issue, which also includes information on dealing with bugs in your
sorghum fields.
Roger Osburn writes ont he subject of growing certified seed "Seed Certification is open to all who wish to participate. Seed Certification is the process required to produce high quality pedigreed seed. It is in effect the same type of system that the major seed companies use to ensure that the grain producer is getting high quality seed. Certified seed is a limited generation seed production system. Each time that you produce a class of certified seed you start with fresh clean seed. This process insures that problems with varietal purity, weed and other crop seed will be a limited factor. Foundation seed produces Registered seed, Registered seed produces Certified seed and Certified seed produces grain." We have this current issue of the PASS newsletter linked on our website- click below to get to that link. Click here for the link to the PASS Newsletter released August first. | |
Coppock Goes Down Under Talking Biotech in Wheat. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ The CEO of the
National Association of Wheat Growers, Daren Coppock, spent this past week
"down under" in Australia as an invited speaker at the Australia Grains
Industry Conference in Melbourne. The conference brought together nearly
600 people from the Australian grain industry and featured guest speakers
from around the world. The conference was jointly organized by the
National Agricultural Commodities Marketing Association (NACMA), the
Australian Oilseeds Federation (AOF) and Pulse Australia.
Coppock participated on a panel entitled "Genetic Revolution" which was focused on biotechnology. He outlined the case for biotechnology in the United States and summarized industry efforts to initiate a food chain dialogue in preparation for utilizing biotech traits in the U.S. wheat crop. NAWG and U.S. Wheat Associates are also reaching out to producers in Australia and Canada in an attempt to coordinate introduction of biotech traits in all three markets. Other panelists to address the group included David Stark from Monsanto, who described the Monsanto pipeline in crops other than wheat; Damian Honey, a barrister from London with legal experience in biotechnology issues; and Keith Alcock, a consultant to Molecular Plant Breeding CRC, who outlined various models of coexistence being used around the world. Many in the Australian industry appear eager to gain access to biotech
traits in wheat, particularly if they can alleviate Australia's chronic
problems with drought. Conference sessions on climate change offered
little encouragement of more rainfall in the near future, but there was a
lot of interest in wheat trials in the State of Victoria that show a 20
percent yield improvement under drought stress. Dr. German Spangenberg,
the principal investigator on the project at the Victoria Department of
Primary Industries, has planted the second year of trials, which will be
harvested this coming December. | |
NASS Looking for Your Response. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ We got an
email this last week from David Ranek, Deputy Director of the National Ag
Statistics field office in Oklahoma City- and he tells us that this past
week- the row crop field survey began to be collected for this 2008
growing season.
David tells us "On July 30, NASS began the row crop ag yield survey. This monthly survey asks farmers for their acreages and yield expectations for any row crops they grow. (The small grain ag yield gave us the monthly wheat yield updates.) Since it is cost prohibitive to survey all farmers, we have a sample of operators drawn according to very strict guidelines. Therefore, it is very important to the results that all farmers reply, no matter how large or small their acreages. " The row crop survey will include the following crops- alfalfa, corn, cotton, hay, peanuts, sorghum and soybeans. The initial data request is out now- if you have not responded- the NASS people really need your help in getting that info quickly. They will be following up with you as the season unfolds for production updates which is the basis for further crop production reports between now and November. "Your operation, large or small, represents Oklahoma agriculture. David asks that we pass along to producers "We need your assistance in providing timely and accurate data." | |
The Calendar is Crowded- Including the big Futures Farms Conference that Kicks off Tomorrow! ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Future Farms-
Planning for Change will get underway tomorrow with a series of field
trips out to various parts of the state where innovative ideas are being
used by a variety of farmers and ranchers. On Wednesday- the scene moves
to the Bricktown Convention Center in downtown OKC for a wide ranging set
of seminars that help you think outside the box when it comes to your
operation. We have details of this on our website on the Calendar page.
Beyond Future Farms- there are several series of meetings that get underway the next few days- including the regional Beef Quality Assurance Meetings, the Oklahoma Farm Bureau District Grass Roots meetings, the Regional Input Meetings planed for development of the Oklahoma Comprehensive Water Plan- and even a total of 15 Town Hall meetings planned by Oklahoma's man on the House Ag Committee, Congressman Frank Lucas. We have ALL of these events on our calendar page and MORE- click on the link below and scroll through the month of August- I bet you will find one or more events/meetings that should be important to you and your farm/ranch operation. | |
Our thanks to Johnston Enterprises, National Livestock Credit and American Farmers & Ranchers for their support of our daily Farm News Update. For your convenience, we have our sponsors' websites linked at the top of the email- check them out and let these folks know you appreciate the support of this daily email, as their sponsorship helps us keep this arriving in your inbox on a regular basis! 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. | |
Looking at our Agricultural Markets... ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
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: | |
God Bless! You can reach us at the following: ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
email: ron@oklahomafarmreport.com
phone: 405-473-6144
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