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We invite you to listen to us on great radio stations across the region on the Radio Oklahoma Network weekdays- if you missed this morning's Farm News - or you are in an area where you can't hear it- click here for this morning's Farm news from Ron Hays on RON.
Let's Check the Markets!
OKC West is our Market Links Sponsor- they sell cattle three days a week- Cows on Mondays, Stockers on Tuesday and Feeders on Wednesday- Call 405-262-8800 to learn more.
Today's First Look:
mornings with cash and futures reviewed- includes where the Cash Cattle market stands, the latest Feeder Cattle Markets Etc.
OKC West in El Reno had a light run of cows and bulls on Monday- only 94 head- there was a much HIGHER undertone noted to the sales that happened- click here for their full report.
The Oklahoma National Stockyards had just 3,500 head of cattle to sell on Monday- Feeder steers that were front-end/reputation cattle sold steady to 2.00 lower, remainder of the feeder cattle traded 3.00-5.00 lower. Click or tap here for the complete report as compiled by USDA Market News
Okla Cash Grain:
Joplin Stockyards had just er three thousand head- Compared to last week, steer calves steady to 3.00 higher, yearling steers steady, heifer calves under 500 lbs steady, over 500 lbs 3.00 to 10.00 higher, following last week's sharply lower trade- Click here for the full report from USDA.
Futures Wrap: Feeder Cattle Recap: Slaughter Cattle Recap: TCFA Feedlot Recap:
Our Oklahoma Farm Report Team!!!!
Ron Hays, Senior Farm Director and Editor
KC Sheperd, Associate Farm Director and Editor Sam Knipp, Farm Editor Pam Arterburn, Calendar and Template Manager Dave Lanning, Markets and Production |
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Oklahoma's Latest Farm and Ranch News
Your Update from Ron Hays of RON
Tuesday, April 14, 2020
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Howdy Neighbors!
Here is your daily Oklahoma farm and ranch news update.
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The temporary closing of two beef (JBS) and pork (Smithfield Foods) processing plants prompted Dr. Glynn Tonsor, Kansas State University livestock market economist, to study the impact of on cash beef and pork prices. Tonsor worked with Dr. Lee Schulz, livestock economist for Iowa State University Extension and Outreach, to forecast cash prices resulting from the shutdown.
It is always a delicate balancing act between available supply and processing, Tonsor said. This has been exacerbated by the COVID-19 sickness forcing processors to close plants to protect workers.
"If we have 20 percent lower utilization of available plants, taking that much offline," Tonsor said, "we project that's a 27 percent reduction in fed cattle prices."
The picture is even more bleak for pork producers.
"That same 20 percent reduction in plants is a 36 percent reduction in pork prices," Tonsor said.
The difference in reductions, Tonsor said, is because there is more flexibility in the beef market, as the hog market is more time dependent.
He emphasized both are perishable products and this is not sustainable for very long.
Tonsor said it was impossible for the two economists to analyze precisely how much of the plant reduction was already factored into the market.
Interestingly, Tonsor noted price forecasts by the Livestock Market Information Center have been adjusted downward from January predictions, but more optimistic than the futures market is now indicating
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Sponsor Spotlight
The Oklahoma Cattlemen's Association is the trusted voice of the Oklahoma Cattle Industry. With headquarters in Oklahoma City, the OCA has a regular presence at the State Capitol to protect and defend the interests of cattlemen and cattlewomen.
Their Vision Statement explains the highest priority of the organization- "Leadership that serves, strengthens and advocates for the Oklahoma cattle industry."
To learn more about the OCA and how you can be a part of this forward-looking group of cattle producers, click here for their website. For more information- call 405-235-4391.
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Mondays, Dr. Derrell Peel, Oklahoma State University Extension Livestock Marketing Specialist, offers his economic analysis of the beef cattle industry. This analysis is a part of the weekly series known as the "Cow Calf Corner" published electronically by Dr. Peel and Dr. Glenn Selk. Today, Dr. Peel talks about how meat production is threatened with disruption.
The U.S. meat industry faces unprecedented threats as COVID-19 sweeps through labor forces at meat processing facilities nationwide. Production of beef, pork and poultry are simultaneously threatened as COVID-19 infections affect labor availability and processing capacity in multiple facilities across all meat industries. Reduced processing capacity could cause backups in live animal supplies if animals cannot be processed in a timely fashion. The severity of impacts will depend on specific situations and locations but could include costly delays in holding animals until slaughter, backlogs in production facilities, or even disposal of animals.
Such disruptions could result in reduced flows of fresh meat to consumers, compounded by the continuing bottlenecks created by the drastic reduction in the food service sector, roughly half of total food distribution. Since early March, those bottlenecks resulted in limited meat availability in retail grocery despite an ample supply of meat production. The next few weeks could result in continuing shortages of meat at retail grocery due to a short-run reduction in processing capacity and reduced supplies of all meats. Wholesale and retail meat prices may be pushed higher as a result of limited supply. At the same time, limited processing capacity may limit demand for slaughter animals and push farm level prices lower.
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Corn and sorghum planting continues at a slow pace, delayed by cool, wet conditions, according to the latest USDA crop progress report. As of April 12, only 3 percent of the nation's corn crop has been planted, but that is just 1 percent behind the last 5-year average. Corn plantings in the corn belt region has barely started with Iowa, Illinois and Indiana all showing just 1 percent planted.
The great looking wheat crop in Oklahoma could be endangered by freezing temperatures. A weekend cold front dropped temperatures across parts of Oklahoma with 4 of the districts reporting low temperatures at or below freezing on Sunday April 12th.
Winter wheat jointing reached 87 percent, up 25 points from the previous year and up 9 points from normal. Winter wheat headed reached 2 percent, down 4 points from the previous year and down 8 points from normal.
This week, the Oklahoma wheat crop is rated 75 percent good to excellent, compared to 73 percent last week, 23 percent is rated fair this week and 4 percent is in the poor to very poor category.
In Kansas, the winter wheat condition rated 50 percent in the good to excellent category this week (a 1 percent improvement from last week), 35 percent is fair, and 15 percent is in the poor to very category this week.
In Texas, winter wheat fields continued to be grazed throughout much of the state while in some areas of the Northern and Southern High Plains, wheat was being cut for silage. Cold morning temperatures were of concern. Persistent dry conditions in areas of South Texas damaged winter wheat yield potential, while some producers were already failing oats and winter wheat where drought conditions were more severe.
The USDA has rated 66 percent of the Texas wheat crop in good to excellent condition this week (compared to 62 percent last week), 26 percent is rated fair and 8 percent is rated poor to very poor.
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The sky was not blue, and life was not normal.
This wasn't the perfect day.
However, Scott Pace, a USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) District Conservationist in Oklahoma, knows that the ideal days seldom arrive, but a producer's needs are often immediate.
So many of the NRCS employees are teleworking during the COVID-19 crisis, Pace, who is based out of the Choctaw County USDA Service Center in southeastern Oklahoma, grabbed his NRCS baseball cap and a rain slicker on a cold, rainy day and headed to a producer's place near Hugo.
This producer has an NRCS Environmental Quality Incentive Program (EQIP) contract with several practices in it, one of which is a livestock watering facility.
"We are just continuing to offer the quality of service that we always provide; even through the COVID-19 crisis," Pace said. "When that customer called and said he was ready for a checkout, we wanted to get out there immediately and get it checked out so that we could get him paid. We wanted to get that financial burden removed from him."
So, on this day in early April, Pace was checking out and certifying the completion of the livestock watering facility, including a well, solar pumping plant and water testing.
This family has had an EQIP contract with USDA/NRCS for about two years. EQIP practices have included brush management, cross fencing, fire break, prescribed burn, livestock water and prescribed grazing. The producer describes this as a new cattle operation, which is cow-calf.
"The EQIP program has helped us out by Scott providing us with some expert advice and consultation on the land management side of it, helping us to get fencing completed and also with the water resources that are needed for the cattle," the producer said.
The producer added that he appreciates that the NRCS staff are still available and responsive to their calls during these tough times in our country.
Individuals in Oklahoma who are engaged in livestock, crop or forest production whose land use includes cropland, rangeland, pasture and private non-industrial forestland are eligible to apply for NRCS EQIP.
Application Deadline is April 17, 2020.
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Sponsor Spotlight
National Livestock was founded in 1932 in Oklahoma City. National's Marketing Division offers cattle for sale weekly at the Oklahoma National Stockyards in Oklahoma City. The Finance Division lends money to ranchers across several states for cattle production. The Grazing Division works with producers to place cattle for grazing on wheat or grass pastures. National also owns and operates other livestock marketing subsidiaries including Southern Oklahoma Livestock Auction in Ada, Oklahoma, OKC West Livestock Market in El Reno, Oklahoma, and the nation's premier livestock video sale, Superior Livestock Auction. National offers customers many services custom made for today's producer. To learn more, click here for the website or call the Oklahoma City office at 1-800-310-0220.
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As part of Alltech's effort to provide valuable resources to colleagues, customers and the global agricultural community confronting COVID-19, the company has created a special discussion series, Forging the Future of the Farm & Food Chain. Available online beginning today, this free, on-demand series features experts from around the world as they share their insights into how the global pandemic is affecting the agriculture industry's present and future.
"Crises illuminate character, and COVID has highlighted the heroic work undertaken by the global agriculture community to ensure a secure food supply in the midst of such uncertainty," said Dr. Mark Lyons, president and CEO of Alltech. "We created this series as an expression of our support for this community.
In addition to offering valuable information and insights in the context of this COVID challenge, we hope to deliver inspiration - we have an opportunity in this moment to, together, shape the future of the farm and food chain."
The series consists presentations from Lyons and three panel discussions with experts including David McWilliams, economist and professor at Trinity College Dublin; Jessica Adelman, CEO of ESG Results and former executive at Kroger; Jack Bobo, futurist and CEO of Futurity; and Ryan Quarles, Kentucky Commissioner of Agriculture.
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Due to the COVID-19 Pandemic, many businesses and schools have closed down to practice social distancing. Many parents are at home with their kiddos trying to come up with daily activities and learning opportunities. Oklahoma Ag in the Classroom has come up with some excellent daily activities you can do with your kids and family.
This week on Ag in the Classroom, we are focusing on specialty Crops for mAgnificent Monday in the Ag Mag! You can see the latest Ag Mag release here:
Your activity for the day is:
1. Pick out your favorite specialty crop in the magazine and comment below with one fact you learned about it
**BONUS : Print out and complete one of the activity pages in the middle, take a picture of the finished page, and add that to your comment!
Flip through the magazine and talk about all the fantastic specialty crops you and your family could grow! From Cabbage to cauliflower and berries to beets! The Magazine (available for free to download) also offers special matching activities for students, coloring sheets, mazes, word finds, and more!
To get your latest copy of Ag the Mag, click here and check back with us weekly as we feature activities from Oklahoma Ag in the Classroom. You can also check out their Facebook page where the update daily on fun activities for you and your family as we get through this quarantine time together!
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Oklahoma Forestry Services has updated its Fire Situation Report and right now there are only burn bans listed for Cimarron and Texas Counties.
Drastic changes in temperature in the wake of a strong cold front that that produced storms and rainfall from southwest Oklahoma into northeast Oklahoma generally along and south of the I-44 corridor has prompted a
reduction in fire danger. Cold temperatures, snow chances and rainfall over the weekend will continue to suppress fire danger into mid-week. Temperatures are forecasted to warm moving through the week to near-normal this coming weekend. No concerning fire weather or fuels indices are anticipated through the week.
The cold temperatures in the forecast will stall green-up in the Oklahoma Panhandle and northwest Oklahoma where overnight temperatures are expected to fall into the 20's three nights consecutively.
Throughout Oklahoma, composite fuels moisture improvements combined with recent green-up progression will serve to limit fire behavior potential providing very good opportunity for successful initial attack opportunities.
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 Webinar Alert- Oklahoma Farm Bureau Beef Market Outlook Tonight- Oklahoma Cattlemen Noon Tomorrow on Selling Beef Direct
The Oklahoma Farm Bureau is hosting a webinar this evening to help cattle producers in the state as they attempt to get their arms around the cattle markets impacted by the coronavirus.
Oklahoma Farm Bureau will offer a panel discussion about the cattle industry and the recent volatility cattle producers have experienced.
Joining them will be Oklahoma State University's Dr. Derrell Peel, American Farm Bureau Director of Congressional Relations Scott Bennett and AFBF Economist Michael Nepveux.
You don't have to be a Oklahoma Farm Bureau member to join in- it will be on ZOOM- and you can click here to register- yo will then be sent a link that allows you to log in on your computer, on your smartphone or via telephone.
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Another webinar that you may want to check out is happening tomorrow at HIGH Noon.
The Oklahoma Cattlemen's Association is holding a Webinar
entitled 'Selling your beef direct to consumers'
OCA explains that "Recently, we've been getting a lot of questions about selling beef direct to consumers. In this FREE webinar, Scott Yates, Director of Food Safety for the Oklahoma Department of Agriculture, Food and Forestry will discuss the ins and outs along with OCA's Executive Vice President Michael Kelsey."
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FINALLY- Smaller Area Freezing This AM- But Tomorrow???
The area that was below freezing on Monday morning included locations all the way over to Osage County and then out to the Panhandle- then as far south as Beckham, Washita and northern Caddo Counties.
Coldest longest was in Texas and Cimaron Counties with 24 to 25 degrees for 11 to 15 hours.
This morning- not as big an area as of 5:35 AM that has dipped to under the freezing mark:
The worry now is exactly how cold it might get tomorrow morning- it looks like there will be another morning of temperatures not unlike what we have seen yesterday and today shaping up- then just a tad bit warmer the balance of the week.
Any damage to the 2020 wheat crop likely will not be seen for at least seven days or so.
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Our thanks to Midwest Farms Shows, P & K Equipment, AFR Insurance, Oklahoma Farm Bureau, Great Plains Kubota, Stillwater Milling Company, National Livestock Credit Corporation, Oklahoma Beef Council, Oklahoma AgCredit, the Oklahoma Cattlemens Association, 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- at NO Charge!
We invite you to check out our website at the link below too that includes an archive of these daily emails, audio reports and top farm news story links from around the globe.
God Bless! You can reach us at the following:
phone: 405-473-6144
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