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Here is your daily Oklahoma farm and ranch news update. 
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Featured Story:

Thanksgiving Day Meal to Feed Ten Tops Fifty Dollars for the First Time in 30th Annual Farm Bureau Survey  

 

 

American Farm Bureau Federation's 30th annual informal price survey of classic items found on the Thanksgiving Day dinner table indicates the average cost of this year's feast for 10 is $50.11, a 70-cent increase from last year's average of $49.41. The survey has shown little change since 2011- as in recent years the cost for the meal has been just over $49.00.


The big ticket item - a 16-pound turkey - came in at a total of $23.04 this year. That's roughly $1.44 per pound, an increase of less than 9 cents per pound, or a total of $1.39 per whole turkey, compared to 2014.


"Retail prices seem to have stabilized quite a bit for turkey, which is the centerpiece of the meal in our marketbasket," AFBF Deputy Chief Economist John Anderson said. "There were some production disruptions earlier this year due to the highly pathogenic Avian influenza outbreak in the Midwest. Turkey production is down this year but not dramatically. Our survey shows a modest increase in turkey prices compared to last year. But we're now starting to see retailers feature turkeys aggressively for the holiday. According to USDA retail price reports, featured prices fell sharply just last week and were actually lower than last year," he added.

We have graphics that show the cost over the years and how it compares to inflation- and more details about the rest of the items that Farm Bureau has been shopping for over the last thirty years- click here to take a look.

 

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WOTUS Guidance Would Result in Continued Confusion, Chaos

 

If federal agencies are left the task of developing implementation guidance for the Waters of the U.S. rule, the result will be a continuation of the rule's "liabilities, confusion and chaos." Issuing guidance can't fix a broken rule, according to a letter a whole host of national farm groups and several of their state affiliates sent to eleven Democratic Senators who voted to oppose bipartisan legislation (S. 1140) seeking to revise the rule. Click here for the the letter from the Ag Community to the Senators.

Among the groups writing these Democratic Senators- American Farm Bureau, National Cattlemen's Beef Association, National Corn Growers, National Pork Producers and even the US Cattlemen's Association.


The groups encouraged the Senators to support any new effort in the Senate "to direct the agencies not to implement this rule and initiate a new, more responsible, balanced and lawful rulemaking."


According to the letter, if the Environmental Protection Agency and the Army Corps of Engineers are allowed to issue guidance for the implementation of the WOTUS rule, such guidance will be of no assistance to address the rules flaws, since many stem directly from the language used by the agencies in the final rule.


What's really interesting is that these eleven Senators- while not voting for Senate Bill 1140 which would have sent WOTUS back to EPA  and instructed the agency to start over and include stakeholders the second time around- these lawmakers did send a letter to EPA and the Army Corps at the beginning of November telling the agencies to get serious about offering clarifications of the regs- or else.

NPPC Statement On Antibiotics Use In Food-Animal Production

 

Like others, America's pork farmers are very concerned about the rise in antibiotic-resistant bacteria and the ability of doctors to treat patients. That's why they have taken steps over the past 30 years to ensure they're using antibiotics strategically and responsibly to keep animals healthy and to produce safe food. They are embracing a new FDA regulation that's eliminating the use for promoting animal growth of antibiotics important to human medicine (this addresses a concern of critics of antibiotics use in food-animal production) and that's requiring the feed and water use of those same antibiotics to be under a veterinary prescription. They also participate in pork industry-developed programs that include responsible antibiotics use and support federal efforts to track antibiotic resistance in foodborne bacteria from humans, retail meats and food animals.


But contrary to critics, such as Consumer Reports, which today published a very misleading article on antibiotics use in food-animal production, pork farmers do not use antibiotics indiscriminately. Furthermore, there is no conclusive scientific evidence linking antibiotics use in food-animal production with antibiotic treatment failures in people. Numerous peer-reviewed risk assessments, including at least one from FDA, have shown a "negligible" risk to human health of antibiotics use in livestock and poultry production. At best, the science on antibiotic resistance is incomplete, and a recent CDC report on the subject focused on overuse of antibiotics in human medicine, mentioning animal use of antibiotics only six times in its 113 pages.  Click here to read more including more information about antibiotic use in pork production.

CropLife America Welcomes Science-Based European Union Review of Glyphosate

 

CropLife America (CLA), the U.S. trade association representing the crop protection industry, welcomes the recently released review by the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) that confirms the long history of safe use of the herbicide glyphosate. The newly completed, comprehensive review by EFSA concludes that the widely used product is "unlikely to pose a carcinogenic hazard to humans."


"This is a crucial and science-based peer review that raises important questions about the selective inclusion and interpretation of data by the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) that led to an inconsistent and erroneous conclusion earlier this year," noted Jay Vroom, president and CEO of CLA. EFSA says it reached the new conclusion by assessing more evidence which included additional key studies not considered by IARC. Vroom added, "The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is also underway with a new risk assessment for glyphosate, which CLA eagerly awaits."


IARC's work includes a wide landscape of product safety evaluations, and their flawed process has led the organization to label many everyday items as possible carcinogens, such as coffee or pickled vegetables. Recently, IARC made unprecedented claims of risks for the consumption of cured meats, including bacon.  Click here to read more from CLA on pesticide regulation in the U.S.

Rabobank's Don Close Looks for Aggressive Rebuilding of U.S. Cowherd, Despite Market Volatility

 

The United States had almost 32 million head of beef cows at the start of the decade. In 2010, the U.S. Department of Agriculture reported the U.S. had 31.7 million head in the July midyear report. From 2010 through 2014, the drought kicked in and lingered over the Southern Great Plains. That cut cattle numbers dramatically. In January 2014, the USDA cattle inventory report showed 29.04 million head of beef cows in the U.S. By January 2015, the herd began to bounce back in adding 600,000 cows to 29.7 million. This year's midyear report in July had the U.S. beef cowherd at 30.5 million head of beef cows.


Rabobank Protein Analyst Don Close believes the January 1, 2016 report will show aggressive rebuilding, even with the price volatility this year. In looking at the seven percent retention of heifers in the July USDA report, he is working with the assumption that's a solid number. He has been looking at the number of heifers as a percentage of cattle on feed and as a percentage of sale barn receipts through the second half of the year. He said the data implies that heifer retention has continued. While he doesn't think retention has continued as aggressively as it did the first half of year, he believes the growth curve continues.


In speaking at the recent Angus Means Business Convention in Overland Park, Kansas, CattleFax Market Analyst Lance Zimmerman said herd expansion this year could exceed one million head. Close responded in agreeing that adding one million head of cows is within the realm of possibility.


"I wouldn't be totally surprised if it was even a little above that million head number," Close said.

 

I caught up with Close at the National Association of Farm Broadcasting in Kansas City, Missouri last week. Click or tap here to listen to the interview.

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Kubota's Launches New Lineup of Mid-Sized Tractors and Skid Steer Loaders

 

This N That- Whole Lotta Shaking, Brrrrr and Peterson Brothers 

 

At 1:42 AM this morning- a lot of folks in Oklahoma and Kansas got a thirty second shaking or more- as a 4.7 Earthquake hit Alfalfa County- 8 miles southwest of Cherokee. There are reports from Kansas City south to the Oklahoma-Texas border of people feeling the quake.

We have had twenty quakes measuring 4.0 or larger in Oklahoma this year.

For folks in north central-northwest Oklahoma- did it wake you up?  What did it feel like?

Justin Dougherty with News9 just tweeted a few moments ago that he had talked with a gas station manager in Cherokee who said the quake just rattled things off the shelves- no damages were noted.

In talking with folks this past week at our National Farm Broadcasters meeting- very few people outside of Oklahoma had ANY IDEA that Oklahoma has had as much earthquake activity as we have had.

AND- as we prepare to push the send button on this email- reports of another earthquake at about the same location just after 6 AM- this one "just" 3.7.


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Watch out- this coming Saturday night and early Sunday morning will be really cold- mid 20s in central Oklahoma which means much of Oklahoma will have a freeze by sunrise this coming Sunday.

Courtesy of Jed Castles at News9- here is the latest nine day forecast for central and western Oklahoma-



Alan Crone with the News on 6 in Tulsa explains  the weekend temps are all about Canadian Cold Air- "The upper air pattern is allowing a significant cold air mass to roll across northwestern Canada into the northern high plains states today.  This air mass will move southward and impact Oklahoma sometime Friday evening with gusty northwest winds and falling temperatures. "

Click here for his complete cold weather blog for this Thursday morning.

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With over 45,000 views in two days- the Peterson Brothers of Kansas have released yet another parody video that tells the story of farming- Farmers Feed the World starts with corn harvest in Kansas- and one of the lines-
"Dirty pair of jeans with pliers on my belt-
Please don't complain unless you're feeding yourself."

They morph into a look at harvest around the US and around the world- and another of the lines to remember-

"Stop- Wait a Minute!
"Fill Your Plate- Put Some Dinner In It
"Take a Bite- Stop and Think
"Farmers Make Your Food and Drink"

Take a look and enjoy!

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