From: Ron Hays [ron@oklahomafarmreport.ccsend.com] on behalf of Ron Hays [ron@oklahomafarmreport.com]
Sent: Friday, April 09, 2010 7:33 AM
To: Hays, Ron
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 April 9, 2010
A service of Johnston Enterprises, P & K Equipment/ P & K Wind Energy and American Farmers & Ranchers Mutual Insurance Company!
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-- Teeth Floater Bill- HB3202- Headed to Governor's Desk to be Signed or Vetoed
-- Oklahoma Farm Bureau on Board with Coalition Opposing SQ744
-- Undercover Again- the HSUS Looking for the Bad Eggs in the Poultry Laying Industry
-- Audio on our website from Tom Vilsack on His Meeting with Japanese Ag Minister
-- Oklahoma crops look fine following cold morning
-- Keep Your Eyeballs on the July Contract of Kansas City Wheat
-- Grass to Grid Sale Coming Tomorrow in Follett, Texas
-- Let's Check the 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 pleased to have American Farmers & Ranchers Mutual Insurance Company as a regular sponsor of our daily update- click here to go to their AFR web site to learn more about their efforts to serve rural America!

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Teeth Floater Bill- HB3202- Headed to Governor's Desk to be Signed or Vetoed
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The Chairman of the House Agriculture Committee, Don Armes, held serve on HB 3202 on Thursday at the State Capitol- but as he commented on the day's events in the State's Chamber- it was not pretty or easy- "Passed HB 3202 on the House floor today after a brutal 2 hour train wreck! Big victory for Oklahoma Agriculture."

The vote was 58 to 37 to basically accept the amendments placed on the House passed 3202 by the State Senate last week and final acceptance came after a procedural battle that at one point seemed to derail the measure. Representative Armes told us in response to an email from us to clarify the vote on Thursday that "The amendment was requested by the Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous drugs to make sure we didn't leave any stone unturned as far as a loophole that would make it harder for them to enforce dangerous drug laws. We have always said it was not a drug issue and that drugs would always have to be purchased from proper sources."

With that vote, the measure is now ready to proceed on to Governor Brad Henry's desk for either his signature or veto. That's the final focal point of battle for those in favor of and those opposed to HB3202- the desk of the state's Democratic Governor who cannot run for reelection later this year. Both sides will likely push hard to get their viewpoints to register with the Governor.

If a veto should come- the Senate seems to have the votes for a possible override but the House could prove to be a problem for supporters of HB3202- it would be a close vote.
On Thursday, just an hour or so after the vote, we posted a news release from the Institute for Justice- a group that came into the state and promoted a yes vote on 3202. The link below is to our story from this group- and yes, it is their opinion as they call the efforts of those opposing 3202 a campaign of misinformation- I have heard from the opponents of 3202 on those comments.
As this story continues, I hope to get an official statement from the OVMA or other body representing concerns and their plans about talking to the Governor to share with you first of the week.

Click here for more on the HB3202 passage from Thursday- including the comments released from Lee McGraff of the Institute for Justice.


Oklahoma Farm Bureau on Board with Coalition Opposing SQ744
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The Coalition is calling itself the OneOklahoma Coalition and on their Facebook page, they describe themselves as "One Oklahoma Coalition is a non- partisan, diverse statewide association of individuals and organizations working together to safeguard the progress being made in our schools and across our state."

This group is being formed to do battle with the Oklahoma Education Association and other supporters of SQ744, which has also been called the Hope Initiative. It is a measure that would require that the state of Oklahoma fund common education in the state at the level of the regional average- and that anytime that regional average goes up- which it would if we increased our spending for common education- our constitutional obligation would go up even further. However, if the regional average falls- the level of minimum funding would not drop at all.

Oklahoma Farm Bureau President Mike Spradling joined leaders of the Oklahoma Public Employees Association and the Oklahoma State Chamber of Commerce at a News Conference on Thursday- and the link below includes the audio from that news conference, courtesy of the Oklahoma Farm Bureau Cmmunications Staff.

Click here for more on One Oklahoma Coalition.


Undercover Again- the HSUS Looking for the Bad Eggs in the Poultry Laying Industry
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The Humane Society of the United States has released video taken at Iowa egg production facilities managed by Rose Acre Farms and Rembrandt Enterprises. The video, recorded over a period of 15 days in February, shows laying hens housed in battery cages. HSUS president and chief executive officer Wayne Pacelle says the video shows hens that have become stuck in cages and unable to free themselves.

Pacelle says HSUS is not citing deliberate malice on the part of workers, supervisors or managers involved at the facilities. He says that the HSUS argument is that these systems are terribly inhumane. He points out that the U.S. egg trade association, United Egg Producers, provides production standards for the egg industry, including a requirement of 67 square inches of space per bird. The HSUS claims that birds on the Rembrandt facility receive only 52 to 54 square inches per bird.

Kevin Vinchattle, the executive director of the Iowa Egg Council and Iowa Poultry Association, says they will fully investigate these claims as they take the claims seriously. Vinchattle says they need to let both firms investigate and find out what the reality is, as he says in the past such videos have been staged. Vinchattle says, - if the video proves to be legitimate, then the problems needs to be addressed.


Audio on our website from Tom Vilsack on His Meeting with Japanese Ag Minister
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Colleague Stewart Doan of Agri-Pulse.Com is in Japan this week, following the activities of USDA Secretary Tom Vilsack, who met on Thursday morning, Tokyo time, with Japanese Ag Minister Akamatsu. After the closed door meeting, Doan talked with Secretary Vilsack about that meeting.

The Secretary indicated that it's an acomplishment to get the Japanese to even agree to actively talk about getting a solution to more US beef access into Japan. He says he will return to the US and talk with USTR Ambassador Ron Kirk about a team to work directly with the Japanese to bring the two sides closer together and hopefully, get both sides on the same track.

In the NCBA's weekly electronic newsletter that comes out Thursday evenings- they indicate they like the efforts of the Secretary. "While, as expected, there was no major movement on beef trade this week, the meetings were a good first step in laying the groundwork for future dialogues," said Gregg Doud, NCBA chief economist. "It is not cliché to say that the foundation of international trade is based upon solid relationships between trading partners. We're very pleased with the Secretary's efforts and strategy to advance relations with Japan and open a dialogue to improve market access for U.S. beef into Japan. NCBA will continue working with Secretary Vilsack and USDA to advance this top priority issue for U.S. beef producers."

Click on the link below for our story on that includes the audio of the conversation between Doan and Secretary Vilsack.

Click here for more on the Japanese US Beef Discussions of this week.


Oklahoma crops look fine following cold morning
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That's the Tweet from OkieAgMan, who is Michael Marlow, District Agonomist for Monsanto. Marlow is an active part of the Twitter scene- and he reports via Twitter yesterday that after checking on several fields in northwestern Oklahoma yesterday- that the need for more rain is a bigger concern than the cold temps we had early Thursday morning across portions of Western Oklahoma.

Michael tweeted yesterday in an oirganized chat called "on the farm" that "My goals are to reach more farmers, tweet more consistantly and find a few more consultants to feed me what they see."

Michael and I share much the same attitude about Twitter- we don't talk about getting another cup of coffee- but we do try to pass along quick hits of information that we are seeing daily in the world of farming and ranching. Along those same lines- we are setting up a Fan Page for the Radio Oklahoma Ag Network- you can search for that on Facebook now if you want and become a fan- we are just now getting that where I am satisfied with how it looks. You can click here to go our twitter page and sign up for Twitter and follow us there- and the link below is a search for OkieAgMan and you can see the type of information that Michael Marlow is dishing out regularly on Twitter.

Click here for a Twitter Search on OkieAgMan


Keep Your Eyeballs on the July Contract of Kansas City Wheat
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OSU Grain Marketing Economist Dr. Kim Anderson has the latest on the wheat and grain markets- and he says that this week's rally in wheat prices has given us a chance to move any final old crop wheat that farmers may own. - He adds that going forward that he is going to be watching the July 2010 Kansas City Wheat Contract with the magic number being $5.00. If we can end up above $5.00 by next Tuesday- Dr. Anderson says there could be another forty cents to the upside right now in the wheat futures- which would be quite a ride in the face of a potentially excellent 2010 HRW crop.

You can hear Dr. Anderson's comments by clicking on our link below as a preview to the weekly TV show on OETA- SUNUP from OSU Ag Communications.

If you click the link below- you can also see what besides the smiling face of Dr. Anderson will be a part of this week's SUNUP program.

Click here for more with Dr. Anderson on the grain markets- and a SUNUP Lineup for this Saturday


Grass to Grid Sale Coming Tomorrow in Follett, Texas
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Griswold Cattle - GCC Genetics Grass to Grid 2010 Sale is scheduled for this Saturday, April 10th at Follett, Texas (just west of Woodward, OK). The sale will begin at 12:30pm. This sale includes cattle and genetics from the GCC Griswold Cattle Company LLC and Collins Cattle Company.

The Grass to Grid Sale will feature 200 Bulls, many sons of leading maternal sires. The genetics will include Angus, MaineAngus and SimAngus. The Maine and SimAngus bulls are the best produced in these programs, many are ET produced and have been selected for moderation, maternal traits and calving ease. These same genetics, have topped Superiors fall video sales and topped the market on the rail. These composite bulls are "the right kind." They offer low birth weight genetics with the ability to add carcass and maternal value in the same cross.

For more information, you can call -1800-975-6313 or click on the link below for a sale catalog. The sale will be held on the west side of Follett, TX at the intersection of Hwy 15 and FR 2741, at the Jeff Bourquin sale facility. This is just a few miles west of the Oklahoma State Line and US Highway 283.

Click here for a sale catalog for the Grass to Grid Cattle Sale set for this Saturday in Follett, Texas.


Our thanks to Midwest Farms Shows, PCOM, P & K Equipment/ P & K Wind Energy, Johnston Enterprises, AFR and KIS Futures for their support of our daily Farm News Update. For your convenience, we have our sponsors' websites linked here- just click on their name to jump to their website- check their sites 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.

Click here to check out WWW.OklahomaFarmReport.Com


Let's Check the Markets!
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We've had requests to include Canola prices for your convenience here- and we will be doing so on a regular basis. Current cash price for Canola is $7.40 per bushel, while the 2010 New Crop contracts for Canola are now available are $7.70 per bushel- delivered to local participating elevators that are working with PCOM.

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:
Our Daily Market Wrapup from the Radio Oklahoma Network with Ed Richards and Tom Leffler- analyzing the Futures Markets from the previous Day-
Ron on RON Markets as heard on K101 mornings with cash and futures reviewed- includes where the Cash Cattle market stands, the latest Feeder Cattle Markets Etc.
Previous Day's Wheat Market Recap- Two Pager From The Kansas City Board of Trade looks at all three US Wheat Futures Exchanges with extra info on Hard Red Winter Wheat and the why of that day's market.
Daily Oklahoma Cash Grain Prices- As Reported by the Oklahoma Dept. of Agriculture. <
The National Daily Feeder & Stocker Cattle Summary- as prepared by USDA.
The National Daily Slaughter Cattle Summary- as prepared by USDA.
Finally, Here is the Daily Volume and Price Summary from the Texas Cattle Feeders Association.



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