Oklahoma's Latest Farm and Ranch News

Howdy Neighbors! 

Both the American Farmers & Ranchers and the Oklahoma Farm Bureau are encouraging their members to travel to Oklahoma City on Wednesday (tomorrow) to let the state legislature know of the support farm groups have for HB1999, the measure that would legalize horse slaughter in Oklahoma- while at the same time would prohibit any food processors from utilizing horse meat in food processing.   

The AFR, in their call to action document, spoke of the push by HSUS last week to convince lawmakers to back away from initial support of the bill. "The strategic legislative efforts of the HSUS have been used in other states to commandeer animal agriculture regulations. A victory for HSUS in one area of agriculture will set a precedent for other areas. We MUST not let this happen in our state! Oklahomans should drive our state's agricultural policy, NOT outside interest groups!

"The HSUS showed up at the capitol last week in mass to protest against our animal agriculture industry."

As we mentioned- the AFR has released a call to action that they have distributed to their membership- we have details of that to see by clicking here.  

Earlier in the legislative session- we did a couple of stories on this piece of legislation, which passed the House easily- click here for details of those votes last month.  A group known as Protect the Harvest issued a statement this past month condemning the personal attacks being made on Representative McNeil- click here to jump back to that story- as Protect the Harvest called on the legislature to support this measure.  

In advance of the initial House and Senate votes- we talked with Skye McNeil- click here for that conversation- in that inteview- the Bristow lawmaker accurately called this a battle between Oklahoma agriculture and HSUS- ""It is time now, if there's ever been a time, to be active and to protect Oklahoma farmers and ranchers. Now is the time. Even if you don't own a horse or aren't interested in horses, if you deal in agriculture, this is an attack on the Oklahoma farmer and rancher. It's time to stand up because, I can tell you, HSUS is getting their members to call their representatives. They're getting active in social media. They are blasting Oklahoma lawmakers and we need people back home telling us this is the right thing to do."

Oklahoma Farm Bureau is also urging their members and others to make contact with the State Senate and with the office of Governor Fallin- encouraging support for the legislation. 

Sponsor Spotlight

We are pleased to have American Farmers & Ranchers Mutual Insurance Company as a regular sponsor of our daily update. On both the state and national levels, full-time staff members serve as a "watchdog" for family agriculture producers, mutual insurance company members and life company members. Click here to go to their AFR website to learn more about their efforts to serve rural America!  

We welcome Winfield Solutions and CROPLAN by Winfield as a sponsor of the daily email- and we are very excited to have them join us in getting information out to wheat producers and other key players in the southern plains wheat belt more information about the rapidly expanding winter canola production opportunities in Oklahoma.  Winfield has two "Answer Plots" that they have planted at two locations in Oklahoma featuring both wheat and canola- one in Apache and the other in Kingfisher. Click here for more information on the CROPLAN Genetics lineup for winter canola. 

National Farmers Union (NFU) and R-CALF USA hailed the proposed changes to Country-of-Origin labeling (COOL) rules released last week by the Office of Management and Budget (OMB).

"The proposed rule changes released by OMB are an excellent response to decisions by the World Trade Organization that called for changes to our COOL implementation," said NFU President Roger Johnson. "By requiring further clarity in labels and stronger recordkeeping, the set of rules released today are a win-win for farmers, ranchers and consumers."

Under the proposed rule, origin designations for animals slaughtered in the United States would be required to specify the production steps of birth, raising, and slaughter of the animal. In addition, this proposed rule would eliminate the allowance for any commingling of muscle cut covered commodities of different origins. These changes will provide consumers with more specific information about muscle cut covered commodities.  Click here for more from NFU.

"If the Secretary finalizes this proposed COOL rule, many of our concerns expressed in our lawsuit will be addressed," said R-CALF USA CEO Bill Bullard adding, "It's just too bad the Secretary allowed Canada, Mexico and the domestic meatpacking and meat retailing industry to prevent him from doing what he knew was the right thing to do four years ago."  You can read more from Bullard by clicking here.  

Other ag groups came out against the proposed rule, including National Cattlemen's Beef Association President Scott George says the proposed rule will make things worse.  Click here for George's comments.

Derrell S. Peel, Oklahoma State University Extension Livestock Marketing Specialist, writes in the latest Cow-Calf Newsletter:

Weekend rains brought one to two inches of moisture to the critically dry northwest part of Oklahoma and added another 1.5 - 2.5 inches to the east central and southeastern parts of the state. The middle of the state from southwest to northeast received up to one half inch of rain. These rain totals will further improve the drought situation in the state. The latest drought monitor, which does not include this rain, showed that less than 10 percent of the state is in the D4 Exceptional (worst) drought category with another 52 percent of the state in the D3 Extreme drought category. That's down from three months ago when more than one third of the state was in the D4 category and more than 90 percent of the state was D3 or worse. Clearly there is short term moisture for cool season forage growth and there will some soil moisture for warm season forage growth to begin in the next month. All of that is the good news.

The bad news is that 100 percent of Oklahoma is still in D2-D4 drought. It will take several more inches of rain above normal to continue soil moisture replenishment.  

Click here to read more of this story.

A bill to amend EPA regulations on above ground fuel and oil storage tanks was introduced March 8 by a bipartisan group of U.S. senators, including Sen. Jim Inhofe, R-OK. The bill is co-sponsored by Sen. Mark Pryor, D-AR, Sen. Deb Fischer, R-NE, Sen. John Boozman, R-AR, Sen. Thad Cochran, R-MS, and Sen. Mike Johanns, R-NE.

The major focus of the amendment to the Spill Prevention, Control, and Countermeasure rule exempts farmers from EPA rules intended for oil and gas refineries. The exemption would apply to farmers who have total fuel storage capacity not exceeding 42,000 gallons with no individual tank to exceed 10,000 gallons.

"As I have been saying for years, the EPA is doing everything it can to regulate Americans out of business, and he (Obama) has his sights on the agriculture industry as well," said Inhofe. "It is unnecessary to force farmers to comply with oil spill regulations that were designed for refineries.

You can read more by clicking here. 

Improving beef production today to protect tomorrow. That's the reason the beef industry has been investing checkoff dollars in something called the Beef Sustainability Study over the last couple of years. A key player on the producer's side of that has been Richard Gebhart, a cattle rancher from northeastern Oklahoma. He is currently the National Cattlemen's Beef Association's chairman of its Federation Division. Gebhart says the sustainability study is vitally important to the beef industry.

"When you look at a lifecycle assessment model you've got to look at the three pillars of sustainability. Classically, people talk about the economic, the environment, and the social impact in there. I prefer to talk about the financial and the environmental and the social."

He said that, obviously, a business has to be financially stable otherwise it's not going to be sustainable and we all know the environment needs to be sustained as well. Gebhart says the factor that intrigues him most is the social. He said their first study, the Cattlemen Stewardship Report was released in 2010 and the results might be very surprising to those who have not seen it.

Richard joins me on the latest Beef Buzz.  Click here to listen to our conversation.

New market challenges and new opportunities inspired the National Pork Board on Thursday to approve adding $3 million in additional Pork Checkoff funds to bolster the 2013 domestic marketing budget during the crucial summer sales months.

Recent pronouncements from key international trading partners undermining U.S. pork's international market access threatens to slow pork exports from the record pace set in 2012. "With farmers still reeling from the high feed prices associated with the 2012 drought, we felt it was critically important that we are doing everything we can to keep pork moving through the marketplace," said National Pork Board President Conley Nelson, an Algona, Iowa, farmer and pork production executive. "With 75 percent of our customers living in the United States, we believe there is a great opportunity to increase domestic demand for quality U.S. pork.

"We can already see some momentum building toward the summer grilling season," Nelson said. "Pork right now is one of the best values in the meat case. We also are getting some help from the new, 145-degree cooking temperature approved last year by the U.S. Food Safety and Inspection Service. We're adding new pork lovers once they discover how good it is when cooked to the right temperature."

Click here for more.
 

Significant rainfall fell across much of eastern Oklahoma last week, and snow continued melting in the northwest.  The state averaged 0.74 inches of precipitation for the week.  The moisture improved wheat and canola conditions, but 41 percent of wheat and 53 percent of canola was rated poor to very poor in the latest USDA Crop Progress and Condition Report.  Only 20 percent of the wheat crop was rated in good to excellent condition.

Pastures and range continued to be rated mostly poor to very poor despite the precipitation.  Stock pond levels improved only slightly with the rains.  You can check out Oklahoma's full report by clicking here.

In Texas, producers were top-dressing small grain crops and applying pesticides as warmer weather caused some wheat fields to green up.  Producers grazed livestock on winter wheat and oats to allow pastures more time to recover from dry conditions.  Only one percent of the state's wheat crop was listed in excellent condition, 17 percent was good, 38 percent was rated fair, and 44 percent was listed as poor or very poor.  Click here for the full Texas report.

Producers from the Plains to North East Texas top dressed small grain crops and began to apply pesticides as warmer conditions caused some wheat fields to green up.

Kansas also received much-needed moisture, with fields greening up and farmers applying top dressing where conditions permit.

The condition of Kansas range and pasture was rated as 49 percent very poor, 32 percent poor, 16 percent fair, and 3 percent good.  The condition of the Kansas winter wheat crop was rated as11 percent very poor, 21 percent poor, 41 percent fair, 26 percent good, and 1 percent excellent.  Kansas's report can be found by clicking here.

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