Before the 2018 Farm Bill kicks into higher gear, the American Farm Bureau decided to release an article dissecting some of the math that goes into crafting a Farm Bill, to help the ag community better understand the balance between savings and budgeting, that Congress has begun attempting to reconcile.

Assuming existing programs in the Farm Bill continue without changes, spending projections calculated by the Congressional Budget Office serves AFB as an indicator of program funds available to Congress.

Farm Bill math creates a few possible scenarios. Depending on negotiations between the budget and agricultural committees the next Farm Bill could be required to be budget neutral, meaning any increase in spending in one part of the bill would require a decrease in spending elsewhere in the bill, or it could be required to have a net reduction.

Given these budget directives, scoring a bill (estimating the additional outlays and potential savings relative to the baseline) is one of the most critical components of farm bill development. From now through the farm bill's passage, any change in policy will require an estimate of the budgetary impact.

The most recent CBO baseline on farm program outlays is an important indicator of the budget outlook going into the next farm bill debate.

You can click or tap here to read the full article by the American Farm Bureau to understand where existing baseline values are and how they are being used to measure the predicted spending impact of Farm Bill policy.

 
Oklahoma State Commissioner of Agriculture Jim Reese has authorized a referendum for later this year to determine if cattle producers in Oklahoma want a state beef checkoff that will run concurrently with the long standing federal dollar a head beef checkoff. Commissioner Reese, in giving the Oklahoma Cattlemen's Association the green light to proceed with a checkoff vote on November first, determined that adequate numbers of signatures were gathered since the fall of 2015 to hold the vote.

In a declaration released at the end of this past week, Reese stated once the agency received the petitions asking for a vote in Mid May- the agency held a public hearing a month later and heard from the Oklahoma Cattlemen, the Oklahoma Farm Bureau and received a written statement from the American Farmers and Ranchers all supporting a vote on a checkoff.

We talked briefly with Secretary Reese yesterday about his authorization- and signaled the plan mapped out by the OCA is what the agency has greenlighted- that includes:


The Vote for a State Beef Checkoff will be held on November first, with voting available to all cattle producers in the state at any Oklahoma State University Extension Office.

Producers will also have a right during the month of October to request a ballot that can be mailed in lieu of showing on November first.

There will be a public information campaign explaining the need for the checkoff.

There will also a public information campaign to raise awareness about cattle producers having the right to cast a ballot on establishing a checkoff or not.

If approved, the dollar will be collected and invested on behalf of Oklahoma cattle producers by the Oklahoma Beef Council, the current official body collecting and handling the federal dollar a head beef checkoff.

The state dollar established by the vote is refundable, if a cattle producer makes a request for a refund.

Click or tap here to jump over to our website to read more- including a chance to see and review the Declaration issued by the state of Oklahoma which authorizes the Noivember first vote.

The National Pork Producers Council spoke out on its stance regarding current international commerce issues. In a press release issued yesterday, the NPPC brought attention to the fact that the European Union has reached a principle trade agreement with Japan. The NPPC also made note that the US still has no formal trade agreement of its own with Japan, and directly renewed its request to the Trump administration to begin seeking such an agreement to protect American interests there.

Such a deal between the US and the Asian nation, would prove immeasurably beneficial to pork producers, and other industries as well, adding certainty to American market share overseas.

According to the release, Japan is the highest value market for U.S. pork exports. In 2016, Japanese consumers purchased almost $1.6 billion of U.S. pork products. Demand in Japan for U.S. pork is very strong despite tariffs and other import measures that limit market access for it.

"The United States must quickly finalize a trade deal with Japan if it wants to maintain that important market," said NPPC President Ken Maschhoff, a pork producer from Carlyle, Ill. "We can't stand by while countries around the world negotiate agreements that give them a competitive advantage over American products."

If President Trump had signed off on the Trans-Pacific Partnership, the previous trade deal that was on the table when he assumed office, Economist Dermot Hayes of Iowa State University estimated that U.S. pork exports to Japan would have increased exponentially under TPP, and would have created more than 5,000 new U.S. jobs.

Click here to read the original press release issued by the NPPC yesterday.

For a time, this spring, the experts were saying that there was money to be made all throughout the entire beef pipeline, from the cow/calf end to the packers. Especially profitable, though says Jim Robb, director of the Livestock Marketing Information Center, has been the feedlot business. He spoke with me about the phenomenal performance of the beef industry over the first half of this year.


"The first five months of this year were the best five consecutive months in our history of doing these calculations, back to the mid-1970s," Robb said, noting that this past May was in fact the second highest month ever on record. "The factors behind May were three-dimensional."


Robb explains that fed cattle prices over this period were higher year-over-year, up about six percent from the prior year's May close-outs. Coupled with that, feeder cattle costs going into this period were down 15 percent year-over-year and the cost of feed stuffs was also down about six percent as well.


"All those factors came together both on the cost side and the price side, to give us these returns," he said, but points out that markets have begun shifting the opposite direction lately. "As we look ahead here, now we have bid much of the profit potential into the feeder cattle profile. Taking that into context, from a feeder cattle perspective, we could very well see red ink soon."


Listen to Robb and I discuss the beef industry's success in the feeding business over the first half of this year and their outlook moving forward, on yesterday's Beef Buzz - click here.

This week, Oklahoma State University's Robert M. Kerr Food & Agricultural Products Center, or FAPC, has found a way to promote food safety, offering tips and useful resources at consumers' finger tips.

FAPC proudly announced the launch of its new mobile app, The FAPC Connect App, made possible by contributions from supporters like J-M Farms, Dvorak Farms, Unitherm Food Systems, Lopez Foods, Griffin Foods, Ralph's Packing Co., deVine Water Co., Shawnee Milling Co. and Clements Food Co.

The app is available for download on both the App Store and Google Play, offers food safety and other food-related information on the go.

The app allows users access to food safety articles, videos and training by FAPC experts on a variety of relevant topics.

The launch of the app coincides with FAPC's 20-year anniversary.


"I can't think of a better way to help celebrate our 20-year anniversary than with the launch of the FAPC Connect app," said Mandy Gross, FAPC communications services manager.. "We are continually searching for new and improved ways to distribute information to help the food and agricultural industries and consumers in general. The mobile app provides another avenue for the center to reach more people."

For more information on the app, or for instructions on how to download it to your smartphone device, click over to our website and view the complete article.

Click or tap here for the full report from Plains Grains on the 2017 Hard Red Winter Wheat Harvest.