~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Oklahoma's latest farm and ranch news
Your Update from Ron Hays of RON for Monday May 17, 2010
A
service of Johnston Enterprises, P & K Equipment/ P & K Wind
Energy and American Farmers & Ranchers Mutual Insurance
Company!
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-- 2010 Oklahoma Wheat Crop Almost at the Finish Line- Looking Much
Better Than in 2009
-- House Ag Committee Road Show Has Lubbock in Today's
Spotlight
-- China Begins Accepting U.S. Pork Shipments
-- OSU Economist Dr. Michael Dicks Scheduled to Testify in Poultry
Workshop on Friday
-- Phase Three of the Beef Industry's Muscle Profiling Study Looks at
Beef Round
-- Online Animal Care Training and Certification now available for
Livestock Auction Market Personnel
-- NCBA is Calling on Their Members and Others to Urge a Yes Vote for
Vote Against EPA's Regulating Greenhouse Gases
-- Let's Check the Markets!
Howdy Neighbors! Here's your morning farm news headlines from the Director of Farm Programming for the Radio Oklahoma Network, Ron Hays. We are pleased 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! It is also great to have as an annual 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! 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. | |
2010 Oklahoma Wheat Crop Almost at the Finish Line- Looking Much Better Than in 2009 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ We are rapidly
moving closer to the harvest of the 2010 Oklahoma winter wheat crop- and
we talked about the state of the crop with OSU Extension Wheat Specialist
Dr. Jeff Edwards as people were gathering for the 2010 Lahoma North
Central Field Station Wheat Field Day this past Friday.
Dr. Edwards believes that while the wheat crop is not totally "made" at this point in mid May- there are few additional maangement tools that can be used to enhance the crop. He expects a crop somewhere close to what the crop scouts predicted in early May of around 130 to 140 million bushels of wheat to be harvested, unless we continue to get rains into June and it becomes a wet harvest season- then all bets are off. Click on the link below to jump to our top story on our website on this Monday morning- and a chance to hear our full conversation with Dr. Edwards about the status of the 2010 Oklahoma winter wheat crop. | |
House Ag Committee Road Show Has Lubbock in Today's Spotlight ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ House
Agriculture Committee Chairman Collin C. Peterson held a field hearing in
Troy, Alabama over the weekend on Saturday to review U.S. agriculture
policy as the Committee begins the process of writing the 2012 Farm Bill.
This is the sixth in a series of hearings scheduled across the country to
consider new ideas regarding Federal food and farm policy. Six Members of
Congress attended today's hearing and heard testimony from nine witnesses
on a variety of farm policy issues. We have an audio overview of the Field
hearing- Stewart Doan reports that farmers spoke of the problem of lack of
profitability in growing many crops at this time- and that the only part
of the farm bill that works for southern farmers and has provided any
assistance has been direct payments.
Next up for the House Ag Committee road show is Texas Tech University and today's Field Hearing in Lubbock, Texas. The hearing begins at 9 AM central time- here's the witness list that does include past Presidents of the National Association of Wheat Growers- David Cleavinger and a past President of the National Corn Growers Association- Dee Vaughn. Click on the link below to read more about the Saturday Field Hearing in Alabama and to see the full witness list for the Lubbock meeting today- all witnesses will be from Texas. Click here for more on the House Ag Committee Road Trip that makes a stop today in Lubbock. | |
China Begins Accepting U.S. Pork Shipments ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ China gave
official notice this past Friday that it is accepting shipments of U.S.
pork, a move hailed by the National Pork Producers Council. Pork produced
on or after May 1 now can be exported to China. The Asian nation closed
its market to U.S. pork in late April 2009 in the wake of an outbreak in
humans of novel H1N1 influenza, which the media misnamed "swine" flu. In
March, the United States and China reached an agreement to reopen the
Chinese market to U.S. pork imports, but it took China until now to begin
accepting product.
"This is tremendous news for U.S. pork producers," said NPPC President
Sam Carney, a pork producer from Adair, Iowa. "China is one of our biggest
markets, so being able to ship pork there is extremely important to the
U.S. pork industry. "Now that it can be sent to the Chinese market, we
will focus on the remaining impediments to exporting U.S. pork to China,"
Carney said. The U.S. pork industry exported nearly 400,000 metric tons of pork
worth nearly $690 million to China/Hong Kong in 2008, making it the No. 3
destination for U.S. pork. Last year, U.S. pork exports to China/Hong Kong
were down by 38 percent, falling to just under $427 million. | |
OSU Economist Dr. Michael Dicks Scheduled to Testify in Poultry Workshop on Friday ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ The Department
of Justice and the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) today announced
the schedule and panelists for the second joint public workshop on
competition and regulatory issues in agriculture, which will be held on
May 21, 2010, in Normal, Ala., at the Ernest L. Knight Reception Center at
Alabama A & M University. The workshop, the second of five, will focus
on the poultry industry.
The workshops, which were first announced by Attorney General Eric Holder and Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack on Aug. 5, 2009, are the first joint Department of Justice/USDA workshops ever to be held to discuss competition and regulatory issues in the agriculture industry. The goals of the workshops are to promote dialogue among interested parties and foster learning with respect to the appropriate legal and economic analyses of these issues, as well as to listen to and learn from parties with experience in the agriculture sector. Attendance at the workshops is free and open to the public. After Federal and State officials offer their opening posturing
statements, two panels will get to the heart of the matter as it relates
to poultry contract growers and where the poultry industry is today on
competitive issues. | |
Phase Three of the Beef Industry's Muscle Profiling Study Looks at Beef Round ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ The Third
Phase of the Muscle Profiling Project of the Beef Industry has identified
more beef cuts from another underutilized area of the beef carcass, and
could offer more lasting value to beef producers in the years ahead. This
most recent phase of the project has focused on maximizing value of the
beef round. The chuck and the round combined make up about 50% of the
weight of the carcass, but only contribute 25% of the value. Of this
amount, the round makes up 23% of the beef carcass. One of the biggest
attributes of the round is that its large size allows for many cuts to be
generated.
According to Tony Mata of the Beef Innovations Group, "The muscles of the round have the advantage that they are pretty good size, they are easy to train personnel for fabricating them, and the yield is pretty good. So, unlike for example the top blade which we had a challenge in convincing packers to fabricate it and sell it as the flat iron, and processors, and that item has a yield of 45-50 percent, and also you really have to have trained personnel to handle it. However, that's not the case with the muscles from the round. They're easier and higher yields." We talk with Tony Mata of the Beef Innovations Group about this work with the Beef Round- and you can hear his thoughts about where these latest efforts may be taking us on today's Beef Buzz. Click on the link below to learn more. Click here for more on the Muscle Profiling Efforts of the Beef Checkoff. | |
Online Animal Care Training and Certification now available for Livestock Auction Market Personnel ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Proper
livestock handling and animal care is a major industry topic - and now
livestock auction market personnel can fine-tune their handling skills,
thanks to a new partnership between Livestock Marketing Association (LMA)
and the Beef Cattle Institute (BCI) at Kansas State University. LMA and BCI have collaborated to produce the Animal Care Training website www.animalcaretraining.org, offering training video, testing and certification in specific areas of livestock handling. The training package includes topics such as low stress animal handling, handling injured or disabled animals; properly moving non-ambulatory animals; safe and responsible euthanasia, and safely working with gates. There is also a section for business owners and managers addressing the need for a coordinated animal handling or risk management program. Dr. Dan Thomson, DVM, is director of the BCI and Jones Professor of
Production Medicine. He said the program was the result of a "unique
partnership" between LMA and the BCI, which produced "a novel training
platform" for livestock market personnel. | |
NCBA is Calling on Their Members and Others to Urge a Yes Vote for Vote Against EPA's Regulating Greenhouse Gases ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ The Senate is
expected to vote this week on a motion to proceed on S. J. Res. 26, a
"Resolution of Disapproval" of the Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA)
greenhouse gas "endangerment finding." The National Cattlemen's Beef
Association (NCBA) is urging the Senate to stand up for American
agriculture by supporting this bipartisan resolution.
This Resolution by Senators Murkowski (R-AK) and Lincoln (D-AR), would
prevent the EPA from trumping Congress and unilaterally regulating
greenhouse gas emissions (GHGs) under the Clean Air Act-a move that would
be devastating to the U.S. economy in general, and agriculture in
particular. In their weekly Washington newsletter, NCBA goes on to say that "It would be irresponsible to allow the EPA to move forward on this type of regulation when there's so much uncertainty surrounding humans' contribution to climate change. S. J. Res. 26 would in effect reverse EPA's finding, and instead allow the complex issue of climate change to be handled through thoughtful Congressional debate. In these challenging economic times, we cannot afford to take actions that further jeopardize the ability of the U.S. to remain competitive in the global marketplace." | |
Our thanks to Midwest Farms Shows, PCOM, P & K Equipment/ P & K Wind Energy, Johnston Enterprises, American Farmers & Ranchers, KIS Futures and Big Iron Online Auctions for their support of our daily Farm News Update. For your convenience, we have our sponsors' websites linked here- just click on their name to jump to their website- check their sites 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- FREE! 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. | |
Let's Check the Markets! ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ We've had
requests to include Canola prices for your convenience here- and we will
be doing so on a regular basis. Current cash price for Canola is $7.15 per
bushel, while the 2010 New Crop contracts for Canola are now available are
$7.15 per bushel- delivered to local participating elevators that are
working with PCOM.
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: | |
God Bless! You can reach us at the following: ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
email: ron@oklahomafarmreport.com
phone: 405-473-6144
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