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.

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Now, this morning, Enid News.Com is reporting that Oklahoma Sustainable Energy LLC is apparently in the same boat with Orion, as they are having to rebid pretty much their entire project because of the delays they ran into last fall when they were preparing to break ground in Enid adjacent to the mammoth grain elevator facilities now owned by ADM. OSE President Terry Detrick says that costs have gone up at least twenty to thirty percent in those six months- and it is causing them to have to redo financing and rethink the entire project.

OSE is the LLC that raised money in late summer from Oklahomans for the project that allowed them to own a part of Oklahoma Ethanol LLC, a joint venture effort from OSE and Chaparral Energy. Detrick says they are moving "cautiously ahead" to come up with a deal that will make his investors money in the rapidly changing world of ethanol production.

Wagner had sobering numbers for groups like Oklahoma Ethanol and Orion- the cost of a plant the size of the ones planned in Enid today will cost about $2.50 per gallon capacity- versus $1.20 or so a couple of years ago. And, he says that if you were signing a deal today- you would wait in line until the first quarter of 2009 to see your plant begin to be built.

Wagner calls the distribution aspect of the ethanol efforts in this country "immature" as he says it is especially hard to handle the DDGs (Dried Distillers Grains) coming from a distance. The best solution is to be able to handle them as wet distillers grains- but you can only go about a hundred miles- they have a short shelf life and they can really be messy in handling. We chatted with Wagner for several minutes yesterday here in Tampa- click here to listen to that interview.

Click here to listen to Ron and Steven Wagner of Ethanol Plant Builder Merrick talk about the state of the Ethanol Industry.

Supporters are excited to have the commitment of House Ag Committee Chairman Collin Peterson of Minnesota as the Principal Sponsor of this measure in the House. On the Senate side, they are still working on a few key lawmakers to get them on board before they start the process of getting as many lawmakers as possible to sign on as co-sponsors in the days to come. McPherson says it is still early to tell how much opposition might surface this session- but she believes we may have opportunity to get some traction on this measure this session of Congress.

She does report that Farm Bureau will be visiting with the entire Oklahoma delegation about this issue in the days to come- including when they head to Washington the last few days of March. In 2006, Congressman Lucas and Ernest Istook were the only House members who signed on as co-sponsors, while Senator Tom Coburn signed on as a co- sponsor in the Senate. Senator Istook, who was serving at that time as the Chairman of the Committee that had jurisdiction over it, was supportive but did not come on as a co-sponsor, which freed his ability to use his influence as Committee Chair on the measure. McPherson says Lucas is obviously onboard- she expects Senator Coburn to be supportive as well and indicates they will be working on the rest of the delegation to educate them on the issue. Ericka is our guest today on the Beef Buzz on the Radio Oklahoma Network- and you can hear her comments by clicking on the link below.

Click here to listen to today's Beef Buzz with Ericka McPherson on the Congressional Efforts on defining Manure.

The project was initiated by Oklahoma Farmers Union, who funded the writing of a grant to do a feasibility study and put together a steering committee to oversee the administration of initial research. The committee partnered with industry experts, and in 2004, received a grant from the United States Department of Agriculture to complete the feasibility study and business plan. Oklahoma State University was selected as the contractor to provide these services.

Besides Gard who is the Chairman of the Board for POP, others on their initial Board of Directors include Terry Detrick who is serving as Vice-Chairman of the Board and Vice President of POP, Mark Holder of Altus who serves as Secretary/Treasurer and board members Walt Grabow of Omega, Clay Pope of Loyal, Pete McDaniel of Apache and Dr. Jerry Hedges of Vici. Gene Neuens serves as POP's Project Development Coordinator. You can call Gene for more information on POP at 405- 218-5753.

This effort is a part of the USMEF “We Care” campaign that concentrates on the sincerity of the U.S. beef industry in delivering safe and quality beef products for consumers to enjoy. It features both trade and consumer elements including advertising, virtual video presentations, retail and foodservice promotions, point-of-sale materials, buyer teams, a beef caravan seminar series, local barbecues, media events and other promotional efforts.

This is the second time that the USMEF has developed a "woman to woman" approach as they rebuild the credibility of US beef with Japanese consumers. USMEF consumer research found that Japanese women – the key decision-makers when it came to family meals – had lost faith in government officials and retailers. Only 1 percent believed that a celebrity could be a valid source of safety information. So, both the campaign after the first domestic case of BSE in Japan and this newest "woman to woman" effort have both been designed to showcase real life women from the United States who can say with credibility that American beef is safe to buy, serve and enjoy. We have linked the news release from the USMEF that describes this campaign in more detail. Phil Seng, CEO and President of the USMEF, is just back from both Tokyo and Seoul and is planning a news teleconference later this week- we will break away from coverage here in Tampa to see what he has to say.

Click here to learn more about the "Woman to Woman" approach the US Beef industry is using in Japan.

One final note on that subject that could be good news for Oklahoma agriculture in the days to come- if we should start regulating business as seriously as the Europeans do- that could raise the value even more for “Carbon Credits” and make the value of what a farmer can sell even more valuable to his operation. This is a story that we will be following up on in the days to come- we may get some from the NFU meeting this weekend and we talked with Mike Thralls of the Oklahoma Conservation Commission about it as well Monday during the OACD meeting- Thralls says they are working on getting ALL of Oklahoma’s land mass included in the opportunity to sell carbon credits from planting trees, or turning cropland back to pasture or even going from conventional till to conservation till. We will be working more on that story for you in the days ahead.

Several Oklahomans have indicated to me they will be here in Tampa and we hope to look some of them up- including Terry Detrick of Oklahoma Farmers Union, J.T. Winters, President of the Oklahoma Association of Wheat Growers and several of the Oklahoma Wheat Commission Commissioners will be on hand for meetings of U.S. Wheat Associates.

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