Howdy Neighbors!

Here's your morning farm news headlines from the Director of Farm Programming for the Radio Oklahoma Network, Ron Hays. We are proud to welcome Farm Credit of East Central Oklahoma as a regular sponsor of our daily email update. Farm Credit of East Central Oklahoma has ten branch offices to serve your farm financing needs and is dedicated to being your first choice for farm credit. Check out their website for more information by clicking here!

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Five quick observations as we arrive here and set up shop-
One- A Volkswagon Golf is a mid size car here in Germany- I am always hit with how large the cars we drive are versus the rest of the world.
Two- Along those lines- You see NO pickups in Europe- sometimes a small one but I don't think I have even seen one of those as of yet. AND I have seen NO General Motors cars- quite a few Ford Focus vehicles but that is it from American auto makers.
Three- In at least the City Center here in Cologne, it is very clean- there's construction and all of that- but you see little or not trash.
Four- American Fast Food and other brands are doing much better than our car makers- the Golden Arches are everywhere- and we have seen multiple Starbucks and a Kentucky Fried Chicken- they still make reference to Kentucky in their point of purchase signage there and there were also at least a couple of Burger Kings here in central Cologne.
and Finally Five- Lots of smiling faces in the stores you go into and on the street. It was busy as we walked around for a few minutes on Monday afternoon as we were trying to get our land legs after about twelve hours of flying- but there is a lot of prosperity here and you can smell optimism in the air.

One of the folks we have already had a chance to talk with a little and we will be sharing some comments with him later in the week is one of founders of Crop Quest Agronomic Services out of Dodge City, Ron O'Hanlon. Ron's company serves Oklahoma as well as four other states with agronomic consulting services- and has since the early 1990s.

Everybody pretty well agreed that the wheat market was due for a correction and when we started the week with no fresh bullish news- down the market came. In the case of the Kansas City Board of Trade, rains in portions of Kansas and Oklahoma likely aided the planting and emergence of the 2008 winter wheat crop and that hurt prices along the way.

At least one analyst I read believes that the wheat market has put its top in for 2007- and it's hard to argue with that- at the peak not much more than a week ago- we saw cash wheat prices very close to $9.00 a bushel in the state of Oklahoma at local elevators. Now, based on where wheat futures may end up later today- eight dollars or better may become a memory of 2007 as well. I have linked the latest wheat elevator prices from the Oklahoma Department of Ag below to let you see where they are as we begin today- obviously with prices falling more than 30 cents per bushel- several elevator locations added some protection to the downside with the bids they were posting yesterday afternoon.

Click here to see the latest grain elevator prices from across Oklahoma.

James Woolsey, former director of the CIA, will be a keynote speaker at the Oklahoma Biofuels Conference and will address the relationship between national security and the development of alternative transportation fuels. Other topics will include the growth in the U.S. biofuels industry, current and emerging research and development initiatives and Oklahoma's emerging biorefining sector. Additional national presenters include: John Ferrell, U.S. Department of Energy; Duane Grant, USDA Advisory Committee on Biotechnology and 21st Century Agriculture; Richard Hess, Idaho National Laboratory; Anna Rath, Ceres, Inc.; Robert White, Ethanol Promotion and Information Council; Dr. Steven Phillips, National Renewable Energy Laboratory; Curt Rich, Van Ness Feldman; David Terry, Governors' Ethanol Coalition and Dr. Jeffery Dahlberg, National Sorghum Producers.

Registration is $45. For more information, a complete list of speakers or registration, click on the link provided below or call 1-800-203-5494. The Oklahoma Biofuels Conference is presented by the Office of the Secretary of Energy, State of Oklahoma, in collaboration with the Oklahoma Department of Agriculture and the Office of the Secretary of Environment, State of Oklahoma.

Click here to be taken to the official website for the Oklahoma Biofuels Conference.

Drake has been a county leader for many years within the organization and more recently on the state board of Directors. He has also been a leader within the cattle industry and served as the last President of the old National Cattlemen's Association as the group merged with other cattle groups and became the National Cattlemen's Beef Association back in the mid 1990s.

Drake says that he understands that the job of OFB President is pretty well a full time position- is very proud of how well regarded the general farm organization is throughout the state of Oklahoma. He tells us that he is also proud that OFB has been able to work so well the last couple of years with other agricultural groups in accomplishing a lot of positive things for rural Oklahoma at the state Capitol. He also feels strongly that the strength of the organization can be traced back to the strong and local insurance company that is a integral part of who Farm Bureau is.

Drake says that he would emphasize and encourage the efforts of the Young Farmers and Ranchers Committee if elected as President, as well as the job done by the Farm Bureau Women's Committee.

Below, we have a link to a 13 minute conversation that we had with Bob Drake in recent days- click on and listen to find out a little more about who Bob Drake is and what his hopes are for the organization. And on Thursday, we will will have a similar interview spotlighting the second candidate for the office, Mike Spradling.

Click here to listen to Ron and Bob Drake talk about his desire to be Oklahoma Farm Bureau President.

US Wheat also believes "The monopolies do not benefit from the discipline of competition and even good management cannot make them efficient grain handlers. Despite their claims to the contrary, the equivalent CWB Pool has consistently returned significantly lower prices to Canadian farmers when compared to the returns generated by U.S. open market prices over several crop years. For example, when the final CWB Pool Return for its flagship Number 1 CWRS 13.5 protein at Vancouver, British Columbia, is compared to the standard U.S. Number 2 NS/DNS 14 protein wheat export class at Portland, Ore., on average, the U.S. HRS open market price has returned more than US$13.00 per MT over the annual final CWB Pool return in each of the past three full crop years. The difference to date in the current crop year is far bigger than the historical average.

This means that if a U.S. wheat producer simply divided his crop into 14 parcels (about the same as the number of public, estimated Pool Outlook Returns released each year by the CWB) and then sold one parcel each day the CWB released a new pool outlook estimate, the U.S. producer would achieve a price premium of more than US$13.00 per MT over the final price CWB returns to Canadian producers. And the system gives U.S. producers the opportunity to extract the price goals they set for their own operation through applied market analysis and a well-managed wheat pricing and marketing plan.

"Why is the open market more efficient? From the market price achieved at the U.S. export point, U.S. producers pay no automatic deductions for excessive grain handling, marketing or administration fees or overhead charges. The grain trade and handling industry - both in-country and at export - must earn its money from the market place by profitably buying, selling, handling and positioning physical wheat as well as by using hedging tools to manage market risks. U.S. grain handlers must be prepared to buy each and every day from producers even when there are no buyers, and sell each and every day to customers even when producers are unwilling to sell. Also, U.S. exporters cannot arbitrarily sell a producer's wheat below market prices in one targeted market without losing the money themselves. They cannot pass an administrative decision loss back to a pool of producers who may not collectively realize the money is missing until it's all over but the shouting.

"The facts are crystal clear: not only is the open market the wheat buyer's best friend, it is also the farmer's best friend."

Today, we look at this particular case and how the fact that it being frozen beef has multiplied the amount of beef involved in this beef recall. Jake joins us for the Tuesday Beef Buzz- heard on great radio stations around the state that are a part of the Radio Oklahoma Network- as well as to be found on our website on our Beef Buzz page at WWW.OklahomaFarmReport.Com.

We also have the program with Jake linked for you to take a listen to by clicking below.

Click here for the Tuesday Beef Buzz with Ron and Dr. Jake Nelson about the Frozen Beef Recall Caper.

Ann tells us that the real key is what you pay for the cattle you buy- that if you buy cattle for too much money- it's like hoping a lottery ticket will pay for your retirement. And she adds there are quite a number of things she will be teaching those in attendance on the 9th and 10th of November- some of the concepts covered at Bud Williams Marketing Schools include:
How to maximize cash flow while minimizing market risk. She contends that the cash flow from a livestock operation can be just as regular as any job and just as secure as any job "in town".
How to identify the best buys in today's market.
How to identify the classes of cattle that are the most overpriced and should be sold immediately.
Why grass in reserve is as good as money in the bank
How to know if owning cattle through the feedlot will pay before you do it.

Ann says space is limited to 50 and a sell-out is expected, so call 1-8777994577 toll free or go their website for the Bud Williams Marketing School, which is linked below.

Click here for the Bud Williams website- then look for the "School" button in the upper right hand side of the page.

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