Agricultural News
Oklahoma Ag Secretary Appreciates Rain, Ready for Winter Contingencies
Mon, 25 Feb 2013 14:20:10 CST
Recent precipitation has everyone in the agricultural sector breathing a little easier and, perhaps, none more so that Oklahoma Secretary of Agriculture Jim Reese. Radio Oklahoma Network Farm Director Ron Hays spoke with Reese recently as snow and rain was falling across much of the state and Reese will be his guest on this Saturday's "In the Field" segment on News 9 at about 6:40 a.m.
"We've had about two weeks of really wonderful agricultural weather," Reese said. "It's been such a blessing to come from where we were even three weeks ago. You'd read prognosticators how horribly dry it was going to be and this totally has reversed. You know, things change. It could turn dry again. The last two weeks have been absolutely wonderful for agriculture."
While this doesn't break the drought, it is encouraging nonetheless, Reese said. He said there hasn't been any runoff to recharge reservoirs yet, but this current precipitation event might begin that process.
Reese said that blizzard conditions in the Panhandle, western, and northwestern part of the state had some producers concerned that cattle might be stranded with little or no feed for a prolonged period of time.
"We are prepared for that. It takes the governor, the National Guard and all those people working together, but we're prepared to do that if the time comes."
Turning from the weather, Reese said a study recently released by Oklahoma Secretary of Commerce Dave Lopez about the impact of key industries in the state was very encouraging. It identified agriculture as one of the major economic drivers in the state.
"That really is a big deal for agriculture. We sit out there in agriculture and we know we're important and we think that we create jobs and are important for the economy. But that was a study that took all of the job codes across every job in Oklahoma and paired it with the locality, how it generates wealth and determined that we were one of the top five. Agriculture and bioscience was one of the top five ecosystems that will grow wealth for the state of Oklahoma. So, we're not a static industry. We're one that can create wealth for the state of Oklahoma and it's really exciting to know that the Department of Commerce is right there with us, promoting us and trying to help us create jobs."
He said agriculture has a lot more to contribute to wealth creation in the future.
"One of the biggest growth sectors is food manufacturing. We sell a lot of our commodities as a bulk commodity. And to further process that product to get more wealth and sell it as a higher-priced product is an area we need to pursue because we sell too many of our products as a bulk commodity.
"The Made in Oklahoma coalition has identified 40 companies that work together to promote their products and they sell $3 billion worth of processed food. That's a pretty significant improvement on the raw product."
Reese said not only would he like to see more foods processed in Oklahoma, but he'd like to see them processed near where they are grown. He said those businesses would be very helpful toward bolstering rural communities.
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