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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The House Ag Subcommittee on Livestock, Dairy and Poultry heard testimony Tuesday on concentration. Several farm industry leaders were on the witness list - including National Farmers Union President Tom Buis- who called on Congress to immediately take action to restore true competition in the marketplace for American farmers and ranchers. A NFU- commissioned study released Monday found that concentration in every sector of agriculture has increased - with the exception of ethanol. Buis credits the decrease of consolidation in the ethanol market to public policy initiatives that encourage diversification and discourage monopolization.
Also testifying before the House Ag Subcommittee was the President of the American Farm Bureau, Bob Stallman, himself a cattle producer from Texas. Stallman urged the subcommittee to consider enhancing the Agriculture Department's oversight of the Packers and Stockyards Act - through the establishment of an Office of Special Counsel for Competition with a designated agricultural counsel. He also encouraged USDA to closely investigate all mergers, ownership changes or other trends in the meat packing industry for actions that limit the availability of a competitive market for livestock producers.

America's cattle producers say the government should help grow the U.S. beef industry and not limit or remove choices in the marketing of cattle. That message was at the heart of testimony given by John Queen - President of the National Cattlemen's Beef Association. Queen told the committee when it comes to market structure and competition issues - NCBA asks that the government not tell producers how they can or cannot market cattle. Queen pointed to recently released government agency reports that say alternative marketing arrangements have provided benefits to some producers without harming the competitiveness of the marketplace. R-Calf was not included in the House Ag Committee hearings on this subject, but will get their chance to add their thoughts to the debate before the Senate Ag Committee Hearing set for today.

"Animal welfare can not be considered in a vacuum. It's easy for animal activists to demand changes, but what impact will changes in animal husbandry have ultimately on the animals or on other factors such as food safety, the environment, the economy and even our national security?" said Johnson. Letting activists lead the discussion "would be like someone without kids establishing the guidelines for how parents should raise their children." Then Johnson explained that, just like parents, "farmers and ranchers are willing to make changes, but we need to make sure any changes are done with a lot of thought to the ultimate outcome."

Contrary to the claims of animal rights activists, producers who follow the latest scientific recommendations for animal welfare management systems and follow specific animal-care guidelines are actually providing surroundings that are better for the animals, better for the producers, better for the environment and, in the end, provide consumers with higher quality and safer food products than 50 years ago, Johnson said.
Kay Johnson was a part of a panel that the Ag Journalists heard from that included a representative of the Humane Society- a major opponent of animal agriculture as we know it here in this day and age.

He reports that in most areas of the state we have in excess of 70 tillers per square foot. The freeze may mean that we will lose ten percent or so of those tillers. Edwards says that the final impact will largely depend on temperatures during grain fill. He concludes that if daytime temperatures stay below 85 degrees over the next month, we are still on track for a good wheat crop in Oklahoma.

We have linked the latest issue of the WPN on our website- listed in Today's Agricultural News on the front page of the OklahomaFarmReport.Com. We also have it linked below for your reading pleasure as well.

Click here for the latest Wheat Production Newsletter from Jeff Edwards.

Hunger tells us that while these diseases usually don't kill the plant outright- that they will sap the strength from the plant and draw down the yield potential of the wheat plant significantly.

We have hit the economic threshold of spraying being worthwhile on these diseases in many places across the state. Check your fields and determine your yield potential- and if it is in the 35 to 40 bushel per acre level or higher- it will probably make sense to spray. You can listen to our full conversation with Bob Hunger today by clicking on the link below.

Click here to listen to Ron visit with Dr. Bob Hunger of OSU.

Dr. Anderson says that a lesson learned from the recent freeze is fairly simple- "there is more risk in production than in price." He says you need to make sure you don't hedge or forward contract more production than you will be able to produce- taking into account last minute yield robbers like freeze of disease.

Anderson believes that we are starting to see livestock operators putting wheat into their feed rations- and that will mean solid demand for wheat stocks as we enter the harvest season. We have our conversation with Kim Anderson recorded- and you can hear our dissection of the market by going tot he link below.

Click here for Ron's conversation with Dr. Kim Anderson on current wheat market outlook!

We talked with Heather Buckmaster of the Oklahoma Beef Council about the event- and she tells us that there will be competition in four categories in 2007- New Dynamic Beef Dishes, Nuevo Latino Dishes, Small Dish Big Tastes and Kids in the Kitchen.

We take a look at the 2007 Beef Cookoff with Heather on today's Beef Buzz, heard on many of our stations across the Radio Oklahoma Network. Of course, we have some of our best Beef Buzzes on our web site and you can browse through the issues impacting the beef industry by looking at some of the shows that we have done. And- of course- we have it linked below for your listening pleasure.

Click here to check out today's Beef Buzz with Ron and Heather Buckmaster of the OBC!

In that gravy, we will have lots of a great tasting beef sausage swimming around, courtesy of Lopez Foods and the Oklahoma Beef Council. We are using their Breakfast Beef Patty to team up with the Shawnee Milling Country Gravy over Biscuits, along with eggs and a choice of beverages that will make up the fixings for our free breakfast!!!

We hope you will join us between 8 and 10 am at State Fair Park for this first ever Farmer Appreciation Breakfast to help kick off the Southern Plains Farm Show tomorrow at State Fair Park in Oklahoma City. Among our other sponsors for this year's breakfast, we are pleased to have helping us out the High Plains Journal, Oklahoma Farmers Union and American Farmers and Ranchers Insurance, Wilson Trailers, Sooner Distributors and Midwest Farm Shows(the folks who are putting on the farm show and help sponsor this email!)

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.

Click here to check out WWW.OklahomaFarmReport.Com