Oklahoma's Latest Farm and Ranch News

Howdy Neighbors! 

Terry Detrick, president of American Farmers and Ranchers, wrapped up a series of meetings with Oklahoma lawmakers in Washington, D.C., recently. It was part of the annual fly-in arranged to meet Representatives and Senators as the return from their summer recess.

I caught up with Terry as he was preparing to depart Washington. 

The number one issue on their members' minds, Detrick says, is getting a farm bill passed as soon as possible. He said lawmakers also see the bill as a priority, but the opinions about the chances of it being finished soon seem to vary greatly from lawmaker to lawmaker.

"It depends on which side of the aisle you are talking to. Some are very pessimistic. Some are very optimistic. However, Congressman Lucas, chair of the House Ag Committee, still is emphatic, saying we will have a farm bill."

Detrick says Lucas is not optimistic that it will be done by the end of September when the current farm bill extension ends. He said that the 1949 permanent farm law would resume, but it would have no effect until January 1, 2014.

"So they really have from September 30 to January 1 to finalize a farm bill before the old '49 law would kick in. And that is another thing we are working on here. We want to keep the '49 law as a permanent law that, any time there is a farm bill that is not renewed by a specific time or extended, then it will revert back to the '49 law and everybody says, 'Boy, that would be impossible.' 

Click here to read more.

 

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Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack announced the award of 33 Conservation Innovation Grants awarded to entities across the nation to develop and demonstrate cutting-edge ideas to accelerate private lands conservation. Grant recipients will demonstrate innovative approaches to improve soil health, conserve energy, manage nutrients and enhance wildlife habitat in balance with productive agricultural systems. USDA's Natural Resources Conservation Service administers this competitive grants program.

"Conservation Innovation Grants activate creativity and problem-solving to benefit conservation-minded farmers and ranchers," Vilsack said. "These grants are critical for developing and demonstrating new ideas for conservation on America's private lands and strengthening rural communities. Everyone relies on our nation's natural resources for food, fiber, and clean water and will benefit from these grants."

"The Conservation Innovation Grant program brings together the strength and innovation of the private and non-profit sectors, academia, producers, and others to develop and test cutting-edge conservation tools and technologies and work side-by-side with producers to demonstrate how solutions work on the land," NRCS Chief Jason Weller said.

You can read more of this story by clicking here.  

The U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia denied plaintiffs' request for a preliminary injunction that, if granted, would have blocked the Department of Agriculture (USDA) from implementing and enforcing its revised country of origin labeling (COOL) regulations until a lawsuit filed July 8 is concluded. The U.S. Cattlemen's Association (USCA), along with National Farmers Union (NFU), American Sheep Industry Association (ASI) and the Consumer Federation of America, became intervenors in the lawsuit on August 19 when the court entered an order granting their motion to intervene in full, permitting the groups to participate in the preliminary injunction hearing as well as the remainder of the litigation.

"We, of course, are pleased with the court's decision to deny the preliminary injunction requested by the plaintiffs," said Jon Wooster, USCA President.  "If the injunction had been granted it would have ensured that the United States would be in violation of its trade obligations under the WTO and also would have further delayed consumers having the type of information Congress has long intended them to have. The revised USDA regulations announced on May 23 of this year will certainly reduce consumer confusion and will allow cattle producers the ability to differentiate their product from foreign beef."

Click here to read more.

 

Beef and baseball are a winning combination in Japan as they are in the United States. To capitalize on that double-header pairing, USMEF recently involved Japanese baseball legend and Oklahoma state Senator Randy Bass in an extremely popular campaign to promote U.S. beef in Japan. With coordination provided by the Oklahoma Beef Council, USMEF brought the two-time Japanese triple crown winner back to the scene of his spectacular baseball success to serve as headliner for a campaign to promote U.S. beef for yakiniku dishes.

Since Japan expanded access for U.S. beef earlier this year to include product from cattle up to 30 months of age, USMEF-Japan and its partners in the Japanese yakiniku industry have collaborated on a variety of promotional programs to let consumers know that popular U.S. beef - particularly beef tongue - is again being featured in the tabletop-grill cuisine.

As part of the fecent promotion, USMEF offerws baseballs and bats autographed by Bass as prizes in a drawing. To be eligible, consumers had to order the "Randy Bass Menu" at participating yakiniku chains nationwide.

You can read the full story on our website by clicking here.  

Calf and yearling prices have staged a nice rally here in the middle part of 2013- and Jim Robb of the Livestock Market Information Center is our guest on the latest Beef Buzz.  He explains some of the keys to this advance.

Robb believes that there are several factors at play- with the headliner of those factors being the tighter supplies of cattle that continues to unfold in cattle country. Drought in 2011 and 2012 reduced our herd significantly- and it has remained dry enough that no herd rebuilding has taken place to date.

Another key factor, according to Jim Robb, is the anticipation by many in the cattle business of cheaper feed grain prices the end of this year into 2014. Corn prices with a four in front of them will help with the red ink in the feedlots- and that will likely free up the dollars to pay for somewhat higher calves and yearlings.

You can click here to listen to our conversation or to read more of this story.

The following news release was issued by R-CALF USA:

R-CALF USA and 142 other organizations sent a letter to members of congress urging them to remove the language in the House Farm Bill (Section 11102) that blocks Grain Inspection Packers and Stockyards Administration (GIPSA) from protecting producers against retaliation, fraud, and other unfair and anticompetitive practices of concentrated meatpackers.

The letter states that "during the 2008 Farm Bill process, Congress heard extensively from livestock and poultry producers, farmer organizations and consumer groups about anti-competitive and unfair business practices...as a result, the final 2008 Farm Bill included provisions to require USDA to write regulations to address the most egregious of these practices and to define certain terms in the statute." Section 11102 of the House version of the 2013 Farm Bill threatens the protections placed in the 2008 Farm Bill. This section would also limit USDA's authority to enforce the Packers and Stockyards Act of 1921.

You can read more of this story and find a link to the full letter and its list of signers by clicking here.

 

From the Show Me State- Ag Interests, including the Missouri Cattlemen's Association, have pushed for and gotten a veto override of S.B. 9, which has to do with tougher punishment for cattle theft- and also addresses animal abuse issues.  

This measure was one of 19 bills that Governor Jay Nixon vetoed in that state's legislative session for 2013- and late Wednesday- MIssouri ag interests saw the state's lawmakers back up their initial vote on the bill with an override of the Governor.

Click here for details and reaction from the Missouri Cattlemen.

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USDA will be releasing their latest Crop Production numbers from NASS and the World Ag Supply and Demand Estimates from the Economic Research Service at 11:00 AM central time this morning.

Paul Georgy with Allendale says the trade is waiting for a possible surprise or two from the USDA when they release their numbers at 11.

As far as the estimates of the trade leading up to the report- Georgy writes on the Allendale website this morning "2013 US corn production average trade estimate is 13.62 billion bushel. USDA August estimate was 13.763 billion bushel and the 2012 final production was 10.78.

"US corn yield for 2013 average trade estimate is 153.69 BPA. The range was 150.2 to 157.2 BPA.

"US soybean production average estimate is 3.140 billion bushels with a range of 2.98 to 3.239 billion bushels. The August USDA estimate was 3.255 billion bushel and 2012 final was 3.015 billion bushel.

"US soybean average trade estimate for yield is 41.172 BPA with a range of 39.0 (Allendale) to 42.4 BPA. USDA August estimate was 42.6 BPA and 2012 final was 39.6 BPA."

We will be posting info from USDA on their released numbers in the 11 AM hour today on our website.

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Finally- we mentioned the Morrison FFA livestock judging team's success at the National Barrow Show in Minnesota in yesterday's email- Mark Johnson, the coach of the Oklahoma State University's Livestock Judging team tells us that his folks did okay as well- "The Oklahoma State University Livestock Judging team had a strong showing earlier this week at the National Barrow Show in Austin, MN.  

"The team finished 2nd Overall and had two team members finishe in the Top Ten Individuals Overall. Brock Herren was 5th and Kass Pfeiffer was 8th." 

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