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~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Oklahoma's latest farm and ranch news
Your Update from Ron Hays of RON for Monday January 15,
2007! A
service of Midwest Farm Shows
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
-- As we deal with winter weather- it's a Federal Holiday- MLK
Day.
-- Slick- Cold- Icy- and it will stay that way for first half of the
week!
-- Kim Anderson says don't pull that trigger on 2007 wheat!
-- Our word for today for Beef Advertising- VITALITY!
-- National Sorghum Producers meeting hit by ice storms!
-- There currently are NO meetings planned with South Korea on beef
shipments.
-- House Ag Committee is set- Lucas is the number three Republican on
the Committee.
Howdy Neighbors! Here's your morning farm news headlines from the Director of Farm Programming for the Radio Oklahoma Network, Ron Hays. Our email this morning is a service of Midwest Farm Shows, featuring the Southern Plains Farm Show in Oklahoma City April 19-21, 2007, as well as the Tulsa Farm Show held each December. Check out details of both of these exciting shows at the official website of Midwest Farm Shows by clicking here. Our E-mail the next few days is also being sponsored by Laura's Lean Beef- Laura's Lean Beef Co., a natural beef provider based in Lexington, KY, will hold a gathering 10:00 am Jan 24 at the Heart of Oklahoma Exposition Center in Shawnee, Ok to introduce local producers to the benefits of raising the lean, heavily muscled cattle that will perform well on Laura's bonus grids. For more information on this meeting- you can can e-mail Beth Whiteford at bwhiteford@LLBcorp.com. Or click here to be taken to their web site for more producer information on Laura's Lean Beef! If you have received this by someone forwarding it to you, you are welcome to subscribe and get this weekday update sent to you directly by clicking here. | |
As we deal with winter weather- it's a Federal Holiday- MLK Day. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Today is a
Federal Government Holiday to honor Martin Luther King, Jr. As a result,
don't expect mail service (of course there are areas of Oklahoma where
that might be impossible anyway) and USDA offices are taking the day off.
The U.S. Stock Market is also closed today, as well as our agricultural futures. Overnight electronic trading will resume this evening on those ag futures that have electronic trading authorized. | |
Slick- Cold- Icy- and it will stay that way for first half of the week! ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ The hardest
hit area of the state is east central and southeastern counties where a
substantial amount of ice came from freezing rain that has paralyzed
movement and means that over a 100,000 are without electricity as we type
this on this Martin Luther King Holiday morning.
The colder Arctic air is now arriving as predicted and is the final piece of this horrible winter storm that has unfolded over the last four days across the state. As of six am this morning, there is literally one Mesonet location in the state in McCurtain County that is reading above freezing at 33 degrees- while it's thirty degrees colder in the far northwestern tip of the Panhandle with a three degree reading in Cimarron County. The forecast shows that the colder air will march southward further into Oklahoma over the next two mornings- with the Panhandle to face low single digits tonight- with temperatures above freezing by Wednesday. The main body of the state will see single digits tonight- except for most southwestern counties that may not get below 11 degrees- another cold night Tuesday night and warming by Wednesday and Thursday. Thursday will be the day that we should start to be solidly above freezing in most locations. We could see overnight lows below zero in northeastern Oklahoma by early Wednesday morning up around Bartlesville. We have linked to the video section of the NewsOk web site where colleague Rosa Flores has a video feature on the couple we told you about that is typical among those ranchers in Cimarron County that were the focus of the hay drop from about a week ago. Bobbie Apple is still trying to locate about 400 of his 900 cattle that remain stranded on in the snow. To get to the video, click on the link below- and then scroll down to January 14 and the title of the video selection is "Ranchers still struggling to feed cattle" Click on that and you'll see Rosa's report from Cimarron County. You may have to register to be able to get to the site- but registration is free. | |
Kim Anderson says don't pull that trigger on 2007 wheat! ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ We talked with
Dr. Kim Anderson after the USDA reports that were released this past
Friday morning and that sent the grain markets soaring with huge commodity
fund buying that will possibly take corn futures sharply higher on Tuesday
when the markets reopen after the MLK holiday. There are an estimated
90,000 unfilled buy orders for corn that will begin to be bought on the
electronic overnight trading platform tonight in Chicago- so another limit
up performance for corn tonight and spilling into tomorrow's Tuesday open
outcry is not impossible to consider.
OSU Grain Marketing economist Dr. Kim Anderson believes that strong grain market means that you should not get in a hurry to price your 2007 winter wheat crop at this point. We have linked our full conversation with Dr. Anderson below- and he explains why as we also talk about the acreage numbers for the winter wheat crop- which for Oklahoma came in at 6.1 million acres, the second largest winter wheat acreage in the U.S. behind the 10.3 million acres sowed in Kansas. | |
Our word for today for Beef Advertising- VITALITY! ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ We begin a
multiple day feature on our regular Beef Buzz report from the Radio
Oklahoma Network with Monte Reese, CEO of the Cattlemen's Beef Promotion
Board. We caught up with Monte, who of course is an Oklahoma boy, in Salt
Lake City during the annual meeting of the American Farm Bureau.
We talked with this veteran of the beef checkoff about where we stand with the advertising efforts as we begin 2007- and what changes might be ahead as cattle producers meet in Nashville that have been elected to the CBB and sit on their Advertising Committee. He said they are looking for a way to express "vitality" when it comes to positioning beef to the consumer- and have several ideas from the Advertising Agency they work with for cattlemen to consider early next month. It's important to realize that while the Ad Agency professionals will make presentations- the cattle producers who actually pay the checkoff themselves will be making the final call on the direction they want to go. We have linked today's Beef Buzz below- and in this report- Monte talks with us about "vitality" as well as an interesting Sam Eliott story that you will want to hear. Click here for today's Beef Buzz from the Radio Oklahoma Network with Ron and Monte Reese. | |
National Sorghum Producers meeting hit by ice storms! ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ In talking
with the CEO of the National Sorghum Producers, Tim Lust, on Sunday
afternoon- most of the people that were scheduled to make it to New Mexico
for their meeting were able to get there- he thought a hundred or so might
be prevented by weather conditions. We were one of that hundred as our
Southwest Airlines ride to Dallas and then out to Albuquerque was wiped
out Sunday afternoon- preventing us from making the journey for their
Monday morning session which was the major part of their informational
program.
Ethanol is a big part of the conversation at the NSP meeting- and they also had a professor from the University of Georgia that we had hoped to visit with that is speaking later today about weed resistance- not just in sorghum- but in all the major crops- that is becoming a bigger and bigger concern. We have a special audio recap of our conversation with Tim Lust that we have linked below-a part of our coverage of the 2007 National Sorghum Producers annual meeting being held this year in conjunction with the Southern Seedman's Association. Click here for the audio recap with Ron and Tim Lust of the NSP. | |
There currently are NO meetings planned with South Korea on beef shipments. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ United States
officials say they will not meet with South Korean officials to discuss
U.S. beef imports until they indicate the sit-down can lead to viable
trade. One USDA official, speaking on condition of anonymity, told Dow
Jones that merely discussing specific reasons why South Korea rejected
U.S. beef shipments is not sufficient. Another USDA official said Seoul
has declined to meet Washington's demands. "We can't agree on an agenda,"
said the official, who also requested anonymity.
There has been a huge amount of frustration within the Bush Administration, the Congress and the US beef industry over the success of the South Koreans to effectively be able to claim that their market is open- yet the standard for entry is impossible to attain. (It's almost like having to be perfect to get into Heaven- Heaven can be open 24/7- but if perfection is the only ticket, nobody would be going) The most frustrating part of his entire crazy affair is that South Korea as recently as 2003 was our third largest customer of beef- buying mainly beef short ribs- which their citizens love! But with the discovery of the Canadian Dairy Cow in December 2003, they closed the market to us- and then negotiated with our government what has turned out to be an impossible protocol a year ago to accept boneless beef from animals under 30 months of age. It's a shame that politicians have been allowed to get this dialogue away from SRMs and instead talk about what is largely irrelevant- bones in and around the major muscle cuts. Unfortunately, it appears that there is little relief in sight in dealing with South Korea on this issue- unless we have the backbone to throw meaningful sanctions into the mix. | |
House Ag Committee is set- Lucas is the number three Republican on the Committee. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ There are 25
Democrats and 21 Republicans that will make up the House Ag Committee in
the 110th Congress, which is the same ratio as the previous Committee the
last two years, just reversed. Top Democrats include Collin Peterson of
Minnesota who is the new Chairman, with Tim Holden of Pennsylvania the
number two Democrat and Mike McIntyre of North Carolina ranked number
three.
Among the top Republicans- former chairman Bob Goodlatte remains in place as the Ranking Minority member, with Terry Everett of Alabama number two and Frank Lucas of Oklahoma the third Republican on the Committee for 2007. Congressman Lucas told us late last week that final subcommittee structure is still not finalized, but he expects to be the Ranking Minority member to Tim Holden on the subcommittee that will have oversight over conservation and research- and perhaps over energy issues as well. If that is the case- this will truly be the "plum" assignment on the House Ag Committee with all the interest in the conservation and biofuels sectors as we prepare to write the 2007 farm bill. With Chairman Peterson saying that more control over writing the various titles of the farm bill to be handed back to the subcommittees, Lucas would be well positioned if that subcommittee slot holds. | |
Our thanks to Midwest Farm Shows for their support of our daily Farm News Update. Go to their website at the link at the top of today's email for more information on either the Tulsa Farm Show or the Southern Plains Farm Show. We also invite you to check out our website at the link below to check out an archive of these daily emails, audio reports and top farm news story links from around the globe. | |
God Bless! You can reach us at the following: ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
email: ron@oklahomafarmreport.com
phone: 405-473-6144
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