Cloture Vote for Senate Farm Bill Set for Thursday Morning

A final vote on the Senate farm bill could come as early as Thursday morning on the floor of the Senate - but is more likely next Monday. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid filed cloture on S. 954 late Tuesday evening - with a cloture vote set for 9:00 AM central time Thursday morning. If the 60-vote threshold is met - a vote on final passage would be held Monday.  

While the Senate is not in session today (Wednesday) - the deadline for filing amendments is at 12 noon central time. The deadline for second-degree amendments is at 8:45  AM Thursday morning. The Senate is expected to go out of session following the cloture vote on the farm bill and cloture votes on student loan bills.  

Earlier in the day Tuesday - Senate Ag Chair Debbie Stabenow suggested a final farm bill vote could be held Thursday if agreement on amendments could be reached - but that did not appear probable late Tuesday. 

Roll Call has quoted Chairwoman Stabenow as saying that she is still hopeful that a finite number of amendments could be debated and voted on- but clearly Harry Reid wants a farm bill vote done sooner rather than later.

USDA and EPA Launch U.S. Food Waste Challenge

The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), in collaboration with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) launched the U.S. Food Waste Challenge, calling on others across the food chain-including producer groups, processors, manufacturers, retailers, communities, and other government agencies to join the effort to reduce, recover, and recycle food waste. Secretary Tom Vilsack and EPA Acting Administrator Bob Perciasepe were joined at the event by representatives from private-sector partners and supporters including Rio Farms, Unilever, General Mills, the Food Waste Reduction Alliance, Feeding America, and Rock and Wrap It Up!.

Food waste in the United States is estimated at roughly between 30 to 40 percent of the food supply. In 2010, an estimated 133 billion pounds of food from U.S. retail food stores, restaurants, and homes never made it into people's stomachs. The amount of uneaten food in homes and restaurants was valued at almost $390 per U.S. consumer in 2008, more than an average month's worth of food expenditures.

"The United States enjoys the most productive and abundant food supply on earth, but too much of this food goes to waste," said Secretary Vilsack. "Not only could this food be going to folks who need it - we also have an opportunity to reduce the amount of food that ends up in America's landfills. By joining together with EPA and businesses from around the country, we have an opportunity to better educate folks about the problem of food waste and begin to address this problem across the nation."

Click here to read more.
 

Kansas Wheat Farmer Sues Monsanto for Gross Negligence Following Possible Discovery of GMO Wheat in Pacific Northwest

Ernest Barnes, a Morton County, Kansas wheat farmer. has filed a civil lawsuit against Monsanto alleging gross negligence and other causes of action following reports last week of the discovery of unapproved genetically modified wheat in an 80-acre field in Oregon. Barnes seeks compensation for damages caused by the discovery, which he and his lawyers claim sent wheat export futures prices spiraling downward.

The firm of Susman Godfrey filed the case in the United States District Court for the District of Kansas.  

"Monsanto has failed our nation's wheat farmers," said Stephen Susman , Susman Godfrey's lead attorney on the case. "We believe Monsanto knew of the risks its genetically altered wheat posed and failed to protect farmers and their crops from those risks."

After news broke of the discovery of the unapproved wheat, Japan and South Korea suspended some imports of American wheat, and the European Union, which imports more than 1 million tons of U.S. wheat a year, said it would ensure its "zero tolerance" policy against genetically modified crops was maintained. Kansas exports about 90 percent of its wheat.

You can read more of the story as well as the full text of the lawsuit on our website.  Click here to go there.  

Monsanto Executive Vice President David Snively issued a statement saying tractor chasing lawyers have prematurely filed lawsuits without any evidence of fault and before the crop's harvest.   

Climbing on my soapbox for a moment- we traded tweets with ag journalists based in Kansas- nobody really knows much about Mr. Barnes, altho Greg Akagi of the Kansas Ag Network did come up with a few details that he passed along- saying Barnes is a NFO member, in his mid 60s and was a part of the Tractorcades way back.  Morton County is in southwest Kansas- adjacent to those southeast Colorado counties where the Farm Strike movement was born.  I smell "lawyer" in this one- and Mr. Barnes is simply being used in an effort to go after "Big Biotech" for a fat settlement.  Fact is- the markets have not been hurt to this point- especially if you are a hard red wheat farmer- and depending on how this case plays out- there will likely be no or  limited impact from this discovery.  Within the brief, they talk about all of the reasons why Kansas wheat farmers don't grow GMO wheat- they forgot the real reason- there is no GMO wheat seed available to plant because no commercial variety has been released.  And the first releases-when they come- will not be from Monsanto because they pulled out of the GMO wheat race some eight years ago.  This is not a frivolous lawsuit- but it is darn sure close to it.

Beef Demand Passes Memorial Day Holiday in 'Adequate to Good' Shape, According to Jim Robb 

With Memorial Day, the first of the three big grilling holidays of summer, now behind us, Jim Robb of the Livestock Market Information Center says wholesale boxed beef trade looks like beef demand has passed the holiday in good shape. The Choice boxed beef cutout ended the week at $208.83, its second-highest weekly average ever. That was down about $2 per hundred-weight from the prior week.

"Coming out of Memorial Day, the market really did display that we had rather adequate Memorial Day beef movement in featuring and sales, but nothing that could really move the market higher. And I think the market has really paced throughout the week and that's why we got the fed cattle trade vey late in the week. I would classify the Memorial Day movement as adequate to good, probably not spectacular, but we did this at rather high beef prices."

Robb says there won't be much in the way of price relief for consumers as supplies are simply too tight to allow for much downward pressure.

"As we look into the summer months, we had some pretty good featuring on some of the middle meat items lately. We'll see how the hamburger and all that rolls around. We may see some softness slightly, but we're going to be faced with record-high beef prices from the consumer side and we'll have to even get those higher to support a cutout stronger for the cattle industry."

Jim Robb is my guest on the latest Beef Buzz.  Click here to listen or to read more.  

OSU's Megan Rolf Says Cattlemen are Making Use of DNA Technology Whether They Realize It or Not

Megan Rolf, an Oklahoma State University animal scientist, says commercial cattlemen already use DNA technology by selecting breeding stock backed by genomically enhanced EPDs. They just may not know it yet.

"Within the Angus breed, if you're selecting bulls or herd sires using EPDs, you're already using genomics even if you don't necessarily know that you are, because of the way the American Angus Association incorporates that data it actually flows throughout an animal's entire pedigree and you get the benefit of that information even if you haven't directly done genomic testing on that particular animal."

Understanding and using Expected Progeny Differences, or EPDs, is the easiest way to take advantage of genomics in selection.

"The beauty of these new technologies is that they are incorporated into the existing EPDs, so it works within the same structure, but instead, what we see, are EPDs which we have greater confidence in, which have larger accuracy values. So, even though it is a new technology, it is very well integrated into the current system."

You can read more or watch a video version of this story by clicking here.

 

CME Group Expands Agricultural Options Offering with Three New KCBT Wheat Options Contracts

CME Group announced it has expanded its agricultural options offering through the introduction of three new options on the recently-acquired KCBT hard red winter (HRW) Wheat futures contracts. KCBT Weekly Wheat Options, KCBT-CBOT Wheat Spread Options and MGEX-KCBT Wheat Spread Options will be available for trading on July 1, pending CFTC review.

"Since our acquisition of the KCBT late last year, we've taken a number of steps to grow the existing KCBT futures and options contracts," said Tim Andriesen, Managing Director, Agricultural Commodities & Alternative Investments, CME Group. "We also committed to develop new and innovative options on KCBT wheat futures to provide additional trading and spreading opportunities for our wheat customers. The introduction of these new products expands our options offering and will benefit customers of both varieties of wheat, while further solidifying our role as the leading marketplace for the trading of deep and liquid wheat benchmarks."

Click here to read more.  

This N That- Big Iron Sale Day, Kris Black Cream of the Crop and OJCALandowners

It's Wednesday- and that means its time for us to remind you of the closing of the auction- a few items at a time- for Big Iron.  This week- there are 294 items (with 232 items to be closing next on June 12)- and  you can learn more about Big Iron by clicking here- read some of the tips on how to use Big Iron and then proceed on at the link on that page to this week's auction items.  Our page includes an interview we did recently with Mike Wolfe about how Big Iron can work for both the buyer and the seller.

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This coming Saturday is the Black Hereford Ranch Cream of the Crop sale in Crawford, Oklahoma.  Kris Black and his folks will be selling near 500 head of Powerful CLUB CALF Producing Females and Bulls.  For more details, call Kris at 580-309-0711 or click here for the Sale Page on the Collins Cattle Services website.  

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We will be helping the Oklahoma Cattlewomen on Thursday in Chickasha as they host and run the 2013 Oklahoma Beef Ambassador Contest on the opening day of the Summer Preview of the Oklahoma Junior Cattlemen's Association. Click here for details of the Summer Preview- and we look forward to seeing several of you in Chickasha on Thursday.