Over the weekend, Oklahoma Farm Bureau President Tom Buchanan joined me as my guest on our 'In the Field' segment as seen on KWTV News9. Buchanan and I discussed several of the issues that have started to materialize out of the organization's grassroots resolution committee. The resolutions that come out of this committee will eventually come before members for approval during the Oklahoma Farm Bureau Annual Convention, which will happen November 10-12.

In the coming year, Buchanan says some of the usual suspects will be talked about - old standards like property rights, one of OFB's cornerstone policy concerns. Others likely to be discussed also include the ongoing feral hog issue and of course issues surrounding Oklahoma's waters resources. On a national level, Buchanan says the repeal of WOTUS and obviously the upcoming Farm Bill are being closely monitored.

In the meantime, though, as state lawmakers return to the Capitol for a special session to solve the state's budget crisis - Buchanan says they are paying close attention. Particularly to a proposed fuel tax. He says, not only will this tax disproportionately impact rural citizens, it also will direct funds collected to the general fund rather than appropriating them towards the maintenance of roads and bridges as OFB's policy insists upon.

Read more about our visit or listen in on our complete off-camera conversation from last week, by clicking or tapping here.

According to Ron Sholar of Great Plains Canola, Oklahoman's can expect there to be less planted acres of canola in the state this year compared to last, due to uncooperative weather and planting conditions.

In an interview with our Associate Farm Director Carson Horn, Sholar said fields were far too dry to during early September when the window to qualify for crop insurance opened - which prompted farmers to hold off from planting, hoping for improved conditions down the road. Unfortunately, the weather went from one extreme to the other - dumping torrential amounts of rain over the state which kept producers out of fields until the crop insurance window closed.

Earlier this past spring, Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt, announced that his agency would seek to repeal and replace the controversial 2015 version of the Waters of the United States and replace it with more suitable language. In addition, Congress and the White House are working diligently to pass comprehensive tax reform, hopefully before the end of the year. These are just a few of the policy issues National Cattlemen's Beef Association President Craig Uden says his organization is focused on in Washington, D.C. He spoke recently with me during the Texas Cattle Feeders Association in Amarillo, and says he is looking forward to seeing how these issues turn out.


"We continue to hear that it's coming down the road and that there's a lot of moving parts," Uden said referring to the repeal of WOTUS. "We've stayed engaged on that since March. It's a very aggressive stance to get this thing turned over and fixed. We know there will be a lot of challenges, but hopefully we'll start to see some movement here real soon, so it can be tackled by early next spring before we get into all the midterm elections."


Uden believes the administration as a whole has been very friendly to agriculture, and says the members of President Trump's cabinet have all done a good job working towards the goals they have promised voters - Pruitt included. He points to the administration's framework for its proposed tax reform changes as evidence of the President's sensitivity to the hardships of those in agriculture and other hard-working industries. While there are still some provisions NCBA hopes to get folded into the final revision of the tax code, the fact that the repeal of the death tax is already included in the initial framework, already makes this battle feel like a win. Nonetheless, nothing should be considered a sure thing yet. Uden cautions that the devil will be in the details as the tax reform process moves forward.


"We're going to continue working on tax and hopefully that comes to the floor real soon and we can start moving," he said. "And, we're asking for it all. We've got a lot of challenges out there and it's a pretty tough time in agriculture in general. People need to understand what the capital intensity of agriculture is."


Listen to Uden and Hays discuss some of the top priority issues that NCBA is currently tracking in DC, on Friday's Beef Buzz - click here.

 

A small group of Oklahoma producers(You could count the actual Oklahoma cattle producers there on the fingers of one hand) turned out to hear the Chief Executive Officer of R-Calf USA speak on Saturday night in Oklahoma City. Bill Bullard, who is based in Billings, Montana, made a quick in and out trip to Oklahoma City to promote his group's intentions to sue the State of Oklahoma over the referendum that is now underway that, if approved, would establish a secondary state beef checkoff of a dollar per head on all cattle sold in Oklahoma.

Bullard told me Saturday night that his group has already been successful in disrupting federal beef checkoff dollars from being spent by the Montana Beef Council. His group filed the complaint in the US District Court for the District of Montana in 2016. R-CALF argued that the checkoff program violates the First Amendment by forcing beef producers to subsidize advertisements that contradict their values.

The federal court ruled in their favor and the Montana Beef Council continues to collect the federal beef checkoff assessment- but cannot not keep their half of the dollar but instead are sending it all to the Cattlemen's Beef Board since the court believes that USDA does not have adequate control over the Montana Beef Council.

It is the success in the Montana case that has Bullard looking south to Oklahoma- hoping to derail the implementation of the Oklahoma Beef Checkoff if approved by Oklahoma beef producers. Bullard contends that the law that the checkoff referendum is based on is illegal- saying "we think that this case is ripe for litigation- we think that the referendum itself is unlawful based on Oklahoma law based on what research we have done." Bullard says as a result "It is our intention to challenge the validity of this referendum."

Bullard acknowledges that with the vote already underway that they probably cannot stop the vote- but the R-Calf plan is to challenge a "Yes" vote by producers from ever taking effect. "it's going to be our goal to stop the results of the referendum from ever going into effect."

Click or tap here to jump to our webstory- where you can hear my conversation with Bullard on R-Calf's intentions in Oklahoma.