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 KIS Futures as a regular sponsor of our daily E-Mail. KIS Futures provides Oklahoma Farmers & Ranchers with futures & options hedging services in the livestock and grain markets- Click here for their website or call them at 1-800-256-2555.

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After the Speaker selection, attention will turn to the Governor's State of the State address- and then the real work will start to crank up. We talked with Roy Lee Lindsey, Executive Director of the Oklahoma Pork Council, about the legislative session and what priorities that his group will pursue in the days ahead.

You can click below to listen to Roy Lee's comments- he does see a much more contentious State Senate here in 2008 versus the 2007 version, as that body remains locked up with that most unique 24 to 24 power sharing agreement between Democrats and Republicans.

Click here to listen to Ron and Roy Lee talk about state issues important to pork producers.

We talked with state statistician Will Hundl about the deadline and he says they know they will have farmers and ranchers who are not going to make the deadline. He's talked to some of them and they simply have had more pressing things to accomplish in their farm offices up to this point- and he says they are willing to work with producers in order to get everybody's accurate response of the data needed to compile the Census report by about this time next year.

We have a link below with our conversation with Will- and he says that if you are hung up on getting the census questionaire back in by the end of business today- give them a call and they will work with you to give you some leniency. The toll free number for the Oklahoma NASS office is 1-888-525-9226.

Click here to listen to our conversation with Will Hundl of the Oklahoma NASS office about the Census of Ag.

"The snow and rain have reduced the fire threat in many areas, and we want to be sensitive to those counties and individuals who are still trying to dispose of brush and tree limbs left by the December ice storm. However, if conditions worsen and the fire danger increases in the weeks to come, I will not hesitate to expand the burn ban to protect lives and property." The governor's office announced the decision this afternoon after reviewing precipitation totals and other fire data compiled by forestry officials in the Oklahoma Department of Agriculture. The agency recommended the ban be modified, citing the significant snow and rainfall earlier this week.

The burn ban is lifted for all but the following 25 counties in the panhandle and southwestern Oklahoma: Atoka, Beaver, Beckham, Bryan, Caddo, Carter, Cimarron, Comanche, Cotton, Garvin, Grady, Greer, Harmon, Jackson, Jefferson, Johnston, Kiowa, Love, Marshall, McClain, Murray, Stephens, Texas, Tillman and Washita.

Click here for the map that shows the Burn Ban and links to guidelines for the Burn Ban from the Oklahoma Dept. of Ag

The letter said, in part: "The Colombia and Peru trade agreements are nearly identical and have been skillfully negotiated on behalf of U.S. agriculture. Many U.S. food and agricultural products will become eligible for duty-free treatment immediately upon entry into force of the agreement, and the remainder will receive duty-free treatment upon full implementation... "The TPA will correct an inequity that exists between U.S. exporters of agricultural and industrial products and Colombian exporters. While 90 percent of Colombian products currently shipped to the United States are free from tariffs, most U.S. exports face significant tariffs or other restrictions in Colombia."The letter said, in part: "The Colombia and Peru trade agreements are nearly identical and have been skillfully negotiated on behalf of U.S. agriculture. Many U.S. food and agricultural products will become eligible for duty-free treatment immediately upon entry into force of the agreement, and the remainder will receive duty-free treatment upon full implementation.

"The TPA will correct an inequity that exists between U.S. exporters of agricultural and industrial products and Colombian exporters. While 90 percent of Colombian products currently shipped to the United States are free from tariffs, most U.S. exports face significant tariffs or other restrictions in Colombia."

"The report confirms that feeder supplies will be tight in 2008, especially in the first half of the year. Estimated feeder supplies outside of feedlots is down fractionally from one year ago. The reported number of feeder cattle grazing small grains pasture in Kansas, Oklahoma and Texas is 1.75 million head, only 67 percent of the 2.6 million head reported in 2007.

"The state of Oklahoma showed some recovery in 2007 from the 2005/2006 drought. The January 1, 2008 total cattle inventory is 5.4 million head, up nearly 3 percent from 2007. The number of beef cows is up 2.7 percent at 2.053 million head and the number of beef replacement heifers, at 410,000 head, is up 1.2 percent from last year. The Oklahoma 2007 calf crop was 1.95 million head, down one percent from 2006.
Oklahoma is the fourth largest beef cattle state in the country, based on total beef cattle numbers, while the Sooner state remains the third largest Mama Cow state, altho we are just about 27,000 cows behind second place Missouri.
Clearly, drought in the Southeast played a significant role in the countercyclical decrease in cattle numbers in 2007. Beef cow herds in Alabama, Georgia, Kentucky and Tennessee were down six, five, four and six percent respectively. Beef cow inventories in those four states decreased by a total of 194,000 head, accounting for 57 percent of the total decrease in the U.S. beef cow herd in 2007."

We talk about the numbers in today's Beef Buzz- click here and listen.

"Texas was the last state to achieve the 'free' status. We have more herds and more cattle than any other state­- almost 14 million at last count. We also had more brucellosis infection to fight. In 1959, when Texas officially joined the national eradication program, we had more than 20,000 of the country's 100,000 infected herds," said Dr. Bob Hillman, Texas' state veterinarian and head of the Texas Animal Health Commission (TAHC), the state's livestock and poultry health regulatory agency.
"Now we must ensure that the disease is not reintroduced, or if it is lingering undetected, we must find the infection and eradicate it quickly. If two infected herds are detected within the next two years, we could lose this hard-earned, well-deserved status, so we must do everything to protect the health of our herds," said Dr. Hillman.

"This tremendous achievement could not have been accomplished without the combined efforts of state and federal agencies and industry," said Bruce Knight, under secretary for USDA's marketing and regulatory programs mission area. "But our work is not done. We must now focus our efforts on eradicating brucellosis from the free-ranging elk and bison populations in the Greater Yellowstone Area in order to protect our national cattle herd against future outbreaks of this disease."

I remember my first encounter with this most impressive Secretary. I was a Senior at the University of Kentucky in Lexington and drove to Memphis for the National Agri Marketing Association annual meeting in the spring of 1974- I was working for a small radio station in central Kentucky and covered a news conference of a top government official for the first time in my life- setting there with my cassette recorder and listening to Earl Butz handle the questions of the news professionals at that meeting. I don't know what was said that day- but I will remember that event forever.

On the national stage, he was Assistant Secretary of Agriculture under President Eisenhower from 1954 to 1957, and Secretary of Agriculture from 1971 to 1976, serving both Presidents Nixon and Ford. Politically incorrect in some of his mannerisms before the term even became cliché, he eventually left office and suffered through some tough personal times. In later years, though, his opinions once again became respected, and he goes down as one of the most beloved secretaries of agriculture by farmers across the country.
We have an article on Earl Butz and his passing this past weekend linked below- check it out.

Click here for more on the life and death of Dr. Earl Butz.

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