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 welcome Big Iron Unreserved Online Auctions as our newest sponsor of the daily Email. Their next auction is Wednesday, July 28- featuring Low Hour, Farmer Owned Equipment. Click here for their website to learn more about their Online Farm Equipment Auctions.

We are also excited to have as one of our sponsors for the daily email Producers Cooperative Oil Mill, with 64 years of progress through producer ownership. Call Brandon Winters at 405-232-7555 for more information on the oilseed crops they handle, including sunflowers and canola- and remember they post closing market prices for canola and sunflowers on the PCOM website- go there by clicking here.

And we salute our longest running email sponsor- Midwest Farm Shows, producer of the Southern Plains Farm Show, as well as the Tulsa Farm Show. Click here for more on the December 2010 Tulsa Farm Show, including information on how you can be an exhibitor.

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.

According to the conclusion found in the Executive Summary of the Compliance Review- there are significant problems that NCBA must address and there appears to be some rebuilding of the "firewall" that is talked about so often by checkoff groups. The conclusion says "It is evident from the report that the exceptions and undetermined items identified by CG occurred in all periods tested, but the prevalence was greater in fiscal years 2009 and 2010. In addition, the nature of several of the exceptions and undetermined items reported by CG clearly indicates that NCBA breached the financial firewall during the periods tested and that NCBA did not maintain sufficient documentation in many instances to adequately support the separation of expenditures between the policy side of NCBA and the checkoff side of NCBA. Although not reported as such by CG, CBB considers this lack of sufficient documentation to be noncompliance."

There are some things that will likely be hard to explain and will be embarassing to the NCBA. Travel has been a difficult issue for the NCBA management in the last couple of years and the Compliance Report shows on Page 8 of the report that "A senior staff member expensed travel costs totalling $3,592 related to his spouse's travel to New Zealand for the Five Nations Beef Conference and his spuse and child's travel to San Antonio, Tx to the overhead cost pool." The report points out that these costs should have been paid by the staff member or allocated to the policy side of the NCBA. The report cites federal rules which come into play "Checkoff funds cannot be used for spouses travel per the Ag Marketing Service guidelines." In many other cases, thousands of dollars are questioned by the CPA firm as not having documentation backing up which pot of money should have paid for the expense.

Click on the LINK below for the rest of our webstory- which includes links to the Executive Summary, the full 18 page Compliance Review- which I was told by a CBB staffer last night is not a full fledged audit- and also some very interesting comments by Beef Board officer Robert Fountain of Georgia, who is the Secretary-Treasurer of the CBB.

Click here for more on the Review of how NCBA accounts for Beef Checkoff Money in spot checks from 2008, 2009 and 2010.

State Beef Councils like the Oklahoma Beef Council do an excellent job. OBC and other state beef councils actually collect the money locally and send 50 cents of each dollar on to the national CBB. Some of the dollars that are left stay in the state promoting beef and helping to educate consumers about the healthful benefits of today's beef. A lot of that local fifty cents is pooled with other State Beef Councils in what is called the Federation of State Beef Councils- and concerns about the Federation's role in any of these problems are minimal.

The Beef Checkoff has been in place since the late 1980s- and NCBA has done a tremendous job in doing the work domestically that has helped turn around a slide in beef demand- and NCBA was the principle voice for the beef industry back in 2003 when BSE arrived in the US Cattle Herd- helping consumers understand the US beef supply was still safe. Let me get on my soapbox for a moment- this review shows there are issues in how management within NCBA has not gotten their paperwork done in accounting for all the checkoff dollars they handle- and a relatively small amount may have been misspent- but NCBA has still done a great service over the years to the cattle industry as the major contractor and should be allowed to continue- assuming these discrepancies are cleaned up. (end of soapbox rant)

Early this morning- NCBA did release a very short statement- asking for time- saying "The National Cattlemen's Beef Association staff and elected leaders received the independent auditor's final report, CBB's executive summary and media statement the same time you did. Currently NCBA is reviewing the information CBB publicly released. NCBA appreciates your patience while we develop a response as quickly as possible. NCBA will provide additional information later today, July 27."

As my friend Gary England says- "we'll keep you advised."

Land currently not enrolled in CRP may be offered in this sign-up provided all eligibility requirements are met. Additionally - current CRP participants with contracts expiring this fall covering about 4.5-million acres may make new contract offers. Contracts awarded under this sign-up are scheduled to become effective October 1st of this year.

We have more on our website- including the comments made to the media by Undersecretary Jim Miller and Jonathan Coppess- Administrator of the FSA- the agency within USDA that oversees the CRP program. Click on the LINK below for more on this story and to hear details from these officials.

Click here for more on the next general signup of the Conservation Reserve Program- the first in four years.

The American Farm Bureau Federation is pleased the Agriculture Department's Grain Inspection, Packers and Stockyards Administration has extended its comment period by 90 days on its Packers and Stockyards Act proposed rule. Like other organizations - AFBF initially requested a 120-day extension to better analyze the economic and legal impacts of the rule on producers. But National Farmers Union is disappointed and calls the 90-day extension excessive. NFU President Roger Johnson says extending the comment period gives leverage for packers to offer lower prices to producers as a fear mechanism. Johnson adds that while USDA is taking a step in the right direction with this rule - the process needs to be expedited instead of slowed down.

We have more on the announcement made first thing Monday morning by USDA- with links to more information that is available on the USDA website. Click on the LINK below for the rest of the story.

Click here for more on the GIPSA extension for their livestock marketing rule revamp.

"Fed cattle prices appear to have bottomed seasonally a bit early this summer. Prices have increased from a low around $91/cwt. in late June to the current level of $94+/cwt. Although it is early to be certain, current prices are consistent with boxed beef prices and there is no obvious reason that current price levels cannot hold into the fall. However, fed prices are unlikely to advance further and may trade in a $93-$95 range until late in the third quarter. Fed prices could advance solidly into the mid to upper $90s by the end of the year.

"The latest cattle on feed numbers showed a continued seasonal increase in feedlot inventories. June placements were up 17 percent compared last year. The increase was slightly smaller than the pre-report estimates of a 20 percent increase. Moreover, the increase reveals more about how small last year's value was rather then how large placements were this year. The June placement total is actually 1.7 percent smaller than the previous five-year average. Marketings were equal to year ago levels, also slightly smaller than expected. The resulting on-feed inventory was as expected at 103 of last year. The July 1 on-feed total was 3.2 percent smaller than the previous five-year average."
You can read more about the short term factors for the cattle market- as well as the longer view that Dr. Peel has for us by clicking on the LINK below.

Click here for the rest of the cattle market story as told by OSU Livestock Market Economist Dr. Derrell Peel.

The groups pointed to President Obama's stated goal of reducing reliance on oil imports and reiterated that expanded use of domestically produced ethanol will help accomplish that goal. According to the letter, "Decreasing dependence on foreign oil is a key to this country's environmental, energy and security policy, and the EPA must provide a practical and workable solution to the ethanol blend wall issue and do so soon. Allowing E12 for all motor vehicles as an interim step to a full waiver for E15 is a reasonable and defensible first step to solve the immediate problem."

The groups' letter reviewed previous EPA findings, policy positions and research to demonstrate the reasonableness of approving E12 for use in the nation's automobile and light truck fleet.
"The EPA has a clear basis and the authority to approve E12. While we think delay on E15 is unnecessary and will slow progress on expanding the use of ethanol, we all agree that approval of E12 is a vital interim step that EPA can and should take."

Click here to read the full letter as found on the Renewable Fuels Association Blog

Right in the Oklahoma area, the Big Iron folks have listings for:

- Bobcat S250 Skidsteer
- Kubota M125X Loader Tractor
- Massey Ferguson GC2310 Tractor with Loader and Backhoe

This auction is only online and is unreserved so the highest bidder is the new owner! The auction begins to close out at 10am on Wednesday the 28th. Click on the LINK below to go to the website to review the listings for this week and learn how to both buy and sell the Big Iron way.

Click here for the Big Iron Sale and details of the July 28, 2010 offering.

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

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.