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 have National Livestock Credit Corporation as a regular sponsor of our daily email update. National Livestock Credit Corporation works diligently to provide unsurpassed service to their customers in the area of livestock financing. Check out the National Livestock Family of Services website by clicking here.

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This session was less formal than an actual field hearing of the Transportation Committee that Fallin is a member of- but both lawmakers took the opportunity to beat the drum for the measure which would mandate that a commercial vehicle would be no smaller than 26,001 pounds under Federal rules. They heard from Gary Ridley of the Oklahoma Department of Transportation, from a pair of Highway Patrolmen, from Oklahoma Farm Bureau President Mike Spradling, State Secretary of Agriculture Terry Peach and State lawmaker Don Armes, who is currently the Chairman of the House Ag Subcommittee in the Legislature, as well as a member of the House Transportation Committee.

The lawmakers also had a quick lesson in why 26,001 pounds is a good start, but still falls short of the size of trucks and the weights that many farmers are dealing with as they work on positioning their crops for the most attractive market- that tutoring came from Bob Howard, a farmer from northwest Oklahoma.
We have a special audio overview of the HR 3098 issue- and it's found on the webpage linked below that is a part of WWW.OklahomaFarmReport.Com.

Click here for our audio look at the HR 3098 question.

Oklahoma native and former Executive Director of the Oklahoma Beef Council, Michael Kelsey attended the hearing but was not asked to testify. Kelsey now serves as the Executive Vice President of the Nebraska Cattlemen's Association.

"Nebraska's largest industry, Beef, has not been invited to speak, but we feel it is critical for the public to understand our position on this debate," Kelsey said prior to the hearing. "Certainly the rising cost of energy and increased demand are playing a role in higher food prices," he explained. "However, feed alone makes up 70 percent of a cattleman's operating costs. When corn feed prices increase as they have, so does the cost of running our businesses. This means that our products must sell for more, which means higher beef prices for consumers."

Selk says that the problem that we normally face at this time of year is that our pastures simply cannot supply enough crude protein by themselves for younger cattle, replacement heifers, calves that have just been weaned, stockers and light yearlings- these types of critters need more protein to gain efficiently than what is available in our native grasses and even introduced grasses like bermuda.

Selk's comments are all in the Friday edition of the Beef Buzz, heard daily on great radio stations across the state on the Radio Oklahoma Network. Not only do we have this program with Glen, but we remind you that last Friday, he talked about a related subject, the Cost of Added Gain which was also featured on the Beef Buzz. Use the link below to go to our Beef Buzz page- check out the latest Beef Buzz on this idea of Supplementing Cattle with protein as well as taking a look at all the other Beef Buzz shows you can listen to as well!

Click here for the latest Beef Buzz with Glen Selk found on our Beef Buzz page at WWW.OklahomaFarmReport.Com

He believes that biotech can help maximize the biomass in forage sorghum- and perhaps the sugars in sweet sorghum- and we talk about this whole concept of bringing the sorghum part of agriculture into this world of biotech. Gutterson does acknowledge that it will be conventional varieties that will get the sorghum industry involved as a biomass for cellulosic ethanol in the near future- with the GM traits to follow a few years down the road.

The Gutterson conversation is in our Ag Perspectives Podcast found on the front page at the bottom on our website of www.OklahomaFarmReport.Com. We have a full list of our various interviews that are now available to click and listen to- or download as a podcast- on the Listen to Ron page on the website. There's a lot of interesting stuff on that page- so check it out- just go the main website link- look on the left hand side of the page to the Listen to Ron link choice- click on that and you will see a full list of two of our programming efforts that are in podcast form- our daily farm and ranch news- as well as our Ag Perspectives that offers special audio packages and interviews with some of the most interesting people we run across in the world of agriculture.

Click here for the conversation with Neal Gutterson of Mendel Biotechnology.

It all started with grocery stores across the nation posting signs telling their customers that ethanol was driving up corn prices and that corn prices were driving up their costs. In response, Tolman makes two points. 1. Even at its higher cost, the amount of corn that goes into a box of corn flakes or a tub of movie-theater popcorn costs less than the paper box and tub that contain it. And 2: Food travels, on average, 1,500 miles before reaching a consumer's plate. And that journey costs money.

The EPA's rejection of a Texas request to halve the Renewable Fuels Standard didn't silence the outspoken. Tolman says they continue to - "spread inaccurate and incomplete information" on the issue. Tolman says higher energy costs are something we all can tackle together for the good of everyone. Then maybe food prices will come down, too.

Some like State Representative Don Armes is just downright muddy. He says he left his tractor in the field before the last round of rains- and it will have to set there for a few days- it is too muddy to move it. Armes is from the Lawton area. Further west- State Senator Mike Schultz was smiling from the rain as well- he farms in the Altus area and said he thinks they ended up with around three inches of rain and cooler temperatures for a few days in his area.

You jump further north into the Guthrie area and you hear from guys like Tim Bartram- Executive Director of the Oklahoma Wheat Growers Association- he says he got around an inch of rain at the most. And in checking with Francie Tolle from north central Oklahoma- not many miles from the Kansas border, they have received little of the August rainfall.
All of this is the anecdotal method of assessing rainfall and conditions- perhaps a better way is to look at the Oklahoma AgWeather site and check the Mesonet August rainfall totals- they reflect a lot of what we heard in the Blue Room yesterday- and give us an even bigger picture of who made it to prayer meeting in August and who did not. (Of course, it's still more fun to trade rain stories- one trade at a time- when you gather with others involved in the business.)
It does appear the Prayer Meeting Winners thus far this month live in Waurika with 11.75 inches of rainfall thus far in August, while Lahoma, Burbank and Medford have only received around a half inch apiece for their August rainfall totals.

Click here for the latest Rainfall totals from the Mesonet Site around the state.

You can call to get a catalog- or to ask questions about the sale and the offering by calling 580-758-1464- or click on the link we have provided below.

The sale is set for Wednesday, September 3, 2008, beginning at 11:00 AM at the ranch in Waukomis, just outside Enid. This sale is the anchor leg of four Angus Production sales set for that week- Angus officials are calling it "Oklahoma Angus Week."

Click here for the Pollard Farms website, with the sale catalog link.

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- One Pager From Country Hedging- looks at all three US Wheat Futures Exchanges and the why of that day's market. (This link has been unavailable for the last day or so- sorry)

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.