From: Ron Hays [ron@oklahomafarmreport.ccsend.com] on behalf of Ron Hays [ron@oklahomafarmreport.com]
Sent: Monday, January 05, 2009 5:21 AM
To: Hays, Ron
Subject: Oklahoma's Farm News Update
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Oklahoma's latest farm and ranch news
Your Update from Ron Hays of RON for Monday January 5, 2009
A service of Producers Cooperative Oil Mill, Midwest Farm Shows and Johnston Enterprises!
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-- NCBA CEO Comes From Agribusiness- Forrest Roberts of Elanco.
-- USDA Deputy Chuck Conner Lands Prime Position After Years of Service Within Bush Administration
-- Holiday Jolly For Beef Checkoff Efforts to Touch Consumers
-- Could 2009 be the Year to Solve the Death Tax Dilemma?
-- Your Local Supermarket- the Top Takeout for Prepared Meals?
-- Welcome to the New Year- There's Lot to Do!
-- Looking at the first market day of 2009 (Last Friday)

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!

We are also 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.
And we salute our longest running email sponsor- Midwest Farm Shows, producer of the just concluded Tulsa Farm Show, as well as the April 2009 Southern Plains Farm Show in Oklahoma City. Check out details of both of these exciting shows at the official website of Midwest Farm Shows 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.


NCBA CEO Comes From Agribusiness- Forrest Roberts of Elanco.
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The National Cattlemen's Beef Association announced Saturday Forrest L. Roberts will be its next chief executive officer. Roberts, 42, will start January 20, 2009. Roberts is originally from Uvalde, Texas and received an Animal Science degree from Texas A&M. His work career includes time with Upjohn Animal Health back in 1992, and he remained with the company through its two mergers to Pharmacia Animal Health and later Pfizer Animal Health. In 2004, he left Pfizer to join Elanco Animal Health where he most recently served as the Marketing Manager for Elanco's Beef Business Unit.

"We are thrilled Forrest will be joining us as CEO of the National Cattlemen's Beef Association. We are certain Forrest brings the right experience, vision and optimism to lead the nation's oldest, largest and most respected cattle organization," said Andy Groseta, rancher from Cottonwood, Ariz., and NCBA president.

"My roots, my education, my passion, my career - they're all linked to the cattle industry. I can think of no greater honor than to be CEO of NCBA. I look forward to working with NCBA's staff, members, leaders, state and industry partners to ensure the future strength and sustainability of the U.S. cattle industry," said Roberts.

Click on the link below for the full news release put out by the NCBA on Saturday evening.

Click here more on Forrest Roberts and his selection as the NCBA CEO


USDA Deputy Chuck Conner Lands Prime Position After Years of Service Within Bush Administration
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Charles F. Conner has been named President and Chief Executive Officer of the National Council of Farmer Cooperatives (NCFC), a Washington, D.C.-based trade association representing the interests of U.S. agricultural cooperatives. Conner brings more than 25 years of national and state government, agricultural and trade association experience to his new position. Conner has served as Deputy Secretary for the US Department of Agriculture since May 2005.

"We were extremely impressed with Mr. Conner's career accomplishments, the depth and breadth of his governmental and industry experience, as well as his keen understanding of agricultural policy, trade issues and the business challenges facing U.S. agriculture in general and agricultural cooperatives in particular," noted Bill Davisson, NCFC's chairman the chief executive officer of GROWMARK, who lead the search committee. "He is uniquely qualified to lead NCFC at a critical time when the needs of NCFC members are changing in a highly competitive global business environment."

Conner will begin his new position as president and CEO of NCFC on or about February 1, 2009.
You can read more on Conner's selection for a job that was considered one of the top posts available that had several USDA officials vying for consideration. We have the story on our website- and the link to that story is below.

Click here for more on the Chuck Conner to NCFC Story as seen at WWW.OklahomaFarmReport.Com


Holiday Jolly For Beef Checkoff Efforts to Touch Consumers
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A multi-dimensional publicity effort, funded through the $1-per-head Beef Checkoff Program to give beef more visibility with consumers through the holidays is almost a case study of leveraging a few dollars into a lot of positive spin for beef promotion. The program has generated significant attention for preparing and serving beef while entertaining and at family gatherings. In fact, since Oct. 1, nearly 900 million consumer impressions have been generated through the checkoff's food communications program.

Preparation for the publicity, however, began in March. Since national magazines such as Better Homes and Gardens, Bon Appetit and Everyday with Rachael Ray prepare their holiday editions six months ahead of printing, beef checkoff representatives approached editors with beef story ideas, recipes and cooking tips long ago. A holiday media outreach effort highlighting three lean-beef recipes was disseminated to magazine and newspaper food editors, and to online bloggers. As a result, several media outlets featured beef as the centerpiece entrée for holiday entertaining.

It's quite a success story of taking a story that people are interested in- adding "sizzle" and seeing the consumer impact grow and grow. We have the complete story on our website on our Cattle Industry Insights section at WWW.OklahomaFarmReport.Com. Click below for the full scoop.

Click here to learn more about how the beef story has received almost a billion impressions during the 2008 Holidaty season.


Could 2009 be the Year to Solve the Death Tax Dilemma?
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Welcome to 2009 with the latest step up in the exemption level for the so called "Death Tax." That exemption level for this year is $3.5 million per individual for 2009. And Senator Charles Grassley of Iowa believes that this is an excellent level to freeze the exemption on a permanent basis. Our Monday Beef Buzz features comments from the Republican lawmaker from his year end Ag News Conference held last week in which he addressed this topic.

The cattle industry has long desired a total repeal of the Estate tax- but the window of opportunity for that is long gone. So, both the National Cattlemen's Beef Association and the American Farm Bureau have been talking about the need to provide for some significant level of exemption before 2011, which is when the Tax reverts to early 1990 levels with an exemption of just one million dollars. In 2010, the Death Tax goes totally away for just one year- but then reverts to those previous levels the next year.

Senator Grassley believes the incoming Obama Administration will be open to taking the 2009 level and freezing it into permanent law. We hear his comments about this on today's beef Buzz- and we have the link to that below.

Click here for more on the Death Tax Issue with Charles Grassley Beef Buzzing with Ron Hays at WWW.OklahomaFarmReport.Com


Your Local Supermarket- the Top Takeout for Prepared Meals?
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As consumers tighten their budgets, they are forgoing restaurants in favor of purchasing meal solutions at their local supermarkets, according to What's In Store 2009, the trends report from the International Dairy-Deli-Bakery Association (IDDBA). Food retailers offering prepared meals experienced customer count growth at twice the rate of restaurants, likely due to an average meal price that is half the cost of a restaurant meal.

Self-serve food bars at supermarket delis offer customers the opportunity to mix and match multiple items to create snacks, meals, or party platters at a set price per pound. Hot food bars, salad bars, soup bars, olive and antipasto bars, hot breakfast bars, seafood bars, taco bars, pizza bars, wing bars, and ethnic food bars are just some of the food bars featured in today's supermarket delis. The size of food bars is expanding rapidly at many supermarket delis to meet the increased demand for an alternative to restaurants.

We have a link below to a news release on this study from this trade group- the full report can be bought from them- but it is rather pricey.

Click here to read more on what this trade group claims is the hot "ready to go: food trend of 2009- Supermarkets.


Welcome to the New Year- There's Lot to Do!
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We continue to add items daily to our Calendar Listings as found on our website, WWW. OklahomaFarmReport.Com. For example, we now have listed a series of Cattle Production meetings planned in Ada that begin this month and run pretty well monthly into the summer. And we are adding in the OCA District Meetings planned for next month all across the state.

This week- we remind you of the Beltwide Cotton Conference planned for San Antonio that is getting underway at their Convention Center here at the beginning of the week. Of course this weekend- that same facility will switch from the Beltwide to Farm Bureau as the American Farm Bureau pulls into town this weekend into the first couple of days of next week.

We invite you to go and check out these events and a lot more already on our listings for the month of January. The calendar link is below. AND REMEMBER- keep letting us know about the events that are important to your organization. We want them listed as well. Email me at the address found at the bottom of this newsletter.

Click here for our Calendar page as found at WWW.OklahomaFarmReport.Com


Our thanks to Midwest Farm Shows, Producers Cooperative Oil Mill and Johnston Enterprises for their support of our daily Farm News Update. For your convenience, we have our sponsors' websites linked at the top of the email- check them out and let these folks know you appreciate the support of this daily email, as their sponsorship helps us keep this arriving in your inbox on a regular basis!

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


Looking at the first market day of 2009 (Last Friday)
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We sold feedlot cattle this past Friday afternoon- and at a dollar gain over the trade of the Friday before. According to the Texas Cattle Feeders, over 13,000 slaughter cattle brought $87 in the Texas, Oklahoma and New Mexico feedlot area they serve. You can see some of the details of these sales by clicking on the Daily Volume Report that we have linked at the bottom of the list of market links we have below.

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.



God Bless! You can reach us at the following:
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phone: 405-841-3675
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