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 American Farmers & Ranchers Mutual Insurance Company as a regular sponsor of our daily update- click here to go to their AFR web site to learn more about their efforts to serve rural America!

We are also pleased to have as a regular sponsor on our daily email Johnston Enterprises- proud to have served agriculture across Oklahoma and around the world since 1893. For more on Johnston Enterprises- click here for their website!
And 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.

If you have received this by someone forwarding it to you, you are welcome to subscribe and get this weekday update sent to you directly by clicking here.

We have some early posts on our Blue- Green Gazette which is a part of our website, WWW.OklahomaFarmReport.Com- and more will be coming as the day unfolds. I would suggest you check back at the link below several times during the day if you are interested in an Oklahoma perspective to this annual event.

As we heard from Kent Boggs, Executive Secretary of the Oklahoma FFA earlier this week- our state has more young people as finalists at the national level this year than any other state- and the hope is that we will see several of our young people come home as national winners as well.

Click here for the Blue-Green Gazette and our coverage of the National FFA Convention

Before we left for the FFA convention, we did get a personal tour of the operation with Brandon Winters- and we have a short video that we shot with Brandon on our website about the process of taking the canola that comes into the plant and turning it into canola oil and canola meal.

Brandon tells us from the time that a bucket of canola berries are picked up to the outcome of oil and meal takes thirty minutes or less. We invite you to take a look at the process as Brandon describes it by going to the link below.

Click here for more on local canola being crushed locally by PCOM

"The bottom line is that farmers need to exercise caution as they plan for the new year," said Terry Francl, AFBF senior economist. Most farmers should not have trouble getting credit, but they will have to work closely with their lenders and carefully prepare crop budgets, Francl said. In the upcoming growing season will face a traditional challenge: input costs continuing to rise, while the weaker economy could well push commodity prices lower. "We are very fortunate in production agriculture in that our debt to asset ratio looks pretty good," Francl said. "Agriculture still has the capacity to take on a lot more debt, but just because we can doesn't mean we should run out and bump up borrowing."

The Farm Bureau Economists agree that farmers need to especially watchful of costs they incur in 2009. "Fertilizer costs are expected to be higher in 2009 than they were in 2008. Pesticide prices may also rise, but due to the increased role of biotechnology it is not clear how much actual spending on pesticide will rise," Francl said.
We have more on this outlook from Farm Bureau on our website- click below to jump to this story.

Click here for more on the AFBF Outlook for 2009.

We have the link on our website for the report that reviews where money has been invested in the just concluded fiscal year. Click on the link below to get to that report.

Click here for more on Rural Development's Investments into Oklahoma

JBS also acknowledged that the Department of Justice filed a complaint in the United States Federal District Court in Chicago challenging JBS S.A.'s acquisition of National Beef Packing Company, LLC, from US Premium Beef, LLC. JBS S.A. plans to vigorously defend the Department of Justice lawsuit. "We disagree with the Department of Justice's decision to try and block this transaction," said Wesley Batista, JBS USA's President and CEO. "This transaction is highly pro- competitive and will generate significant efficiencies and synergies that will benefit our cattle suppliers and our beef customers. We believe the government's case is misplaced and we look forward to defending this matter in court."

We have the full statement from JBS linked below- it appears that JBS is moving quickly before activists convince US regulators to rethink their okay of the Smithfield part of the deal.

Click here for the "Notice to the Market"from the JBS website

We have more with Travis which includes an interview with him as he prepared this last week to head for Indianapolis- the story is linked below from our website and the Blue-Green Gazette.

Click here for our conversation with Travis Schnaithman- Star Farmer Finalist for 2008

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.

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.