Howdy Neighbors!

Here's your morning farm news headlines from the Director of Farm Programming for the Radio Oklahoma Network, Ron Hays. It is wonderful to have as a regular sponsor on our daily email Johnston Enterprises- proud to be serving agriculture across Oklahoma and around the world since 1893. For more on Johnston Enterprises- click here for their website!

It's also great to have the Farm Credit Associations of Oklahoma with us regularly as an Email Sponsor- Financing Oklahoma is their business! Check out their website which shows their locations statewide by clicking here!
And we are excited to have as one of our sponsors for the daily email Producers Cooperative Oil Mill, with 64 years of progress through producer ownership. Call Brandon Winters at 405-232-7555 for more information on the oilseed crops they are crushing, including sunflowers and canola- and remember they post closing market prices for canola and sunflowers on the PCOM website- go there by clicking here.

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Obama will announce the nomination of Vilsack on Wednesday, according to at least two Democratic officials. They spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the selection before the announcement. Obama also plans to announce his nomination of Colorado Sen. Ken Salazar as interior secretary at the same news conference, other Democratic officials said.

Agri-Pulse is one of dozens of news outlets in Washington that is reporting that Vilsack is the man that Obama has picked and they write of the popular Iowa Governor "National Farmers Union President Tom Buis, who had been seen as a front-runner for Ag Secretary himself, immediately welcomed the apparent Vilsack choice, saying that at a time of great challenges, "Gov. Vilsack has an understanding of the challenges and opportunities that exist in rural America." Senate Agriculture Committee Chair Tom Harkin (D-IA) also welcomed the possibility that Vilsack will get the job. "He knows production agriculture and he knows the changes we need to ensure its profitability and future, including for young and beginning farmers and ranchers," Harkin said. "Tom Vilsack has the experience, dedication and forward- looking thinking critically needed to build a better future for all Americans in food, agriculture, conservation, and the economic vitality of rural communities."

The former Governor is 58 years of age- and according to the account written by Chuck Abbot of Reuters- "Critics said Vilsack was too much of a supporter of agricultural biotechnology and not enough of a friend to organic or sustainable farmers."
One other Obama leadership team note- Congressman Xavier Becerra of California has been quoted as saying that he has turned down the offer to be the US Trade Representative for President Elect Obama.

We have more in the story on our website about the former Iowa Governor- including the organic activists who REALLY dislike him as a choice to be the top man at USDA

Brownback and Beerwinkle strive to offer a quality postsecondary/adult program that offers solutions relative to the Oklahoma agriculture industry. The school's agriculture business management program focuses on enabling cooperating farm families to improve their skills in financial and economic planning, marketing, farm finance, and recordkeeping. Additional instructional emphasis is devoted to developing skills for families to add supporting non- farm or non-traditional agriculture enterprises and general rural economic development. The instructors stand by the philosophy that adult education must be personalized. Because of varied educational and life experiences, individual instructor-student sessions are very important to the adult learning experience.

This is the second time this decade that the program has won this national honor. We have more on this honor for the Caddo Kiowa Technology Center on our website- click on the link below to read more.

CLick here for more on the national award pulled down by Caddo Kiowa Technology Center

Smith writes on the lead page on the Feedstuffs website "The dynamics of U.S. animal agriculture are changing dramatically. Today's livestock and poultry producers face record high feed costs and are being forced to cut back production in order to survive near-term. All this comes despite strong domestic and export demand for animal products and relatively low or restrained expansion of animal production."

In his presentation he tells us "It's not too little demand. -It's not too much production.
-It's not that prices are too low
as prices are at or near record highs.
-It's that prices aren't high enough to cover costs."
And then he adds, "Remember- there are no rules."
The link we have for you has several links on it for home video quality of Rod's presentation- and the very bottom link on the list is the complete PDF file of his slides on where we are in the livestock business as we approach 2009.

Click here for the Outlook 2009 webpage found on the Feedstuffs website

"The Oklahoma Cooperative Extension Service is teaming with the Natural Resources Conservation Service and Oklahoma Conservation Commission to bring a dynamic no-till program to a projected 250 to 350 farmers and ranchers from Oklahoma and surrounding states," said Chad Godsey, Oklahoma State University Cooperative Extension cropping systems specialist. Godsey said the conference is geared toward both beginning producers and experienced producers who are considering switching to no-till cropping systems.

"A key advantage of attending the conference will be the opportunity to interact with both technical specialists and experienced no-till farmers," he said. "The conference is a great way for producers to get answers to any number of questions they may have about specifics regarding no-till systems." Sessions will focus on soil fertility, key considerations for crop rotation in eastern and western Oklahoma, the importance of storing carbon in crop production, equipment essentials, grazing systems, soil microbial changes in no-till, use of cover crops, strip-till methods and the economics of converting to a no-till system.
We have more details- including registration information on our website on our calendar page- click below for that information and get it on your 2009 calendar now to be a part of the No-Till Conference.

Click here for our calendar listing and links for the Oklahoma No-Till Conference 2009

In a statement, Johnson pointed to the many successes the EPA has had. He said, - EPA has not only helped change the way our environment looks, it has helped change the way each of us looks at our individual duty to protect the environment. Johnson credited the - hard-working professionals at EPA - who he said lead the way in environmental protection.

Environmental responsibility is everyone's responsibility. The Administrator said, - Our air is cleaner, our water is purer, and our land is better protected than just a generation ago. He said, - This is an exciting time at EPA, and Lisa will direct an agency that is poised to build on the many environmental successes accomplished since 2001.

Jim Robb says for the first time in a decade, we will see many cow-calf operators lose money this year, But he says that current market conditions may open up the chance to work retained ownership strategies- and a chance to profit on those animals the first half of 2009. And, he says that this is an excellent opportunity to improve the genetics of your Mama Cow herd.

Robb believes that we will see calf prices stronger at this point in 2009 than right now- and sees profitability in 2010 back into this segment of the beef pipeline.
We have our Wednesday Beef Buzz up on our website- and you can go and check out Jim Robb's thoughts on the cow-calf end of our beef industry by jumping to the page we have for you at WWW.OklahomaFarmReport.Com.

Click here for the midweek Beef Buzz with Ron and Jim Robb

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

Here are some links we will leave in place on an ongoing basis- Click on the name of the report to go to that link:
Our Daily Market Wrapup from the Radio Oklahoma Network with Ed Richards and Tom Leffler- analyzing the Futures Markets from the previous Day-
Ron on RON Markets as heard on K101 mornings with cash and futures reviewed- includes where the Cash Cattle market stands, the latest Feeder Cattle Markets Etc.
Previous Day's Wheat Market Recap- Two Pager From The Kansas City Board of Trade looks at all three US Wheat Futures Exchanges with extra info on Hard Red Winter Wheat and the why of that day's market.
Daily Oklahoma Cash Grain Prices- As Reported by the Oklahoma Dept. of Agriculture. <
The National Daily Feeder & Stocker Cattle Summary- as prepared by USDA.
The National Daily Slaughter Cattle Summary- as prepared by USDA.
Finally, Here is the Daily Volume and Price Summary from the Texas Cattle Feeders Association.