Several times over the years in these daily messages to you- I have stopped and reflected around major holidays about the why of what we do in American agriculture. 

And more than once- I have chosen to use the words of a man who was a pioneer in the business I have been a part of since 1970- radio and especially farm broadcasting.

Here in 2015- I want to share- one more time- the words of Samuel Guard, who graduated from Ohio State a little over a hundred years ago- worked for a livestock magazine, then was Director of Information for the American Farm Bureau and then worked for the Sears Roebuck Foundation and helped put WLS Radio on the air in Chicago- in the 1920s- one of the key reasons to put big booming radio signals on the air was to provide information and entertainment to rural areas. 

Along the way- Guard wrote a little prayer book called "The Farmer Gives Thanks."   It takes you through the entire calendar year with simple prayers from a farmer point of view- winter, spring, sowing, growing, harvesting and rejoicing over the bounty of that harvest.  It's a prayer of rejoicing I share with you today:

"Lord of harvests, Keeper of our feedlots and our fields, we thank thee for a turkey that is fat.

"We thank thee for bread with butter on it.

"We wish we could echo in these poor words the glorious autumn song of praise that rises from our frosted, browning stalks of corn, bent with ears of gold.

"Accept the fragrance of red clover in yon mow as burnt incense rising from the holy earthen altar of this here stock farm.

"Help us to be humble, just and kind as Thy Servant said- especially kind to those creatures over whom thou gave us original dominion, which we have subdued and fattened and multiplied and milked according to Thy direction.

"Make us good shepherds to them as Thou art the Good Shepherd to us.

"Bless all thine own children about this board, or absent from it.

"And make our hearts big enough to receive Thy bounty in constant Thanksgiving.

"Amen."

Old Words- Good Words- Wise Words- Worthy of our Attention on this Thanksgiving Eve 2015.

Oklahoma agriculture has a friend in the group Protect the Harvest in promoting State Question 777, the Right to Farm amendment that will be voted on next November. Protect The Harvest was created to defend and preserve the freedoms of American consumers, farmers, ranchers, outdoor enthusiasts, and animal owners. With an early start in promoting State Question 777, Protect the Harvest Executive Director Brian Klippenstein is excited about the prospects of victory.


"We're excited about the coalition that's coming together, the early and the hard work, the enthusiastic work that's going on," Klippenstein said.


Klippenstein is also excited about starting a conversation about food with the state's consumers. He said often times we focus on the agricultural producer and don't put as much attention on the other 99 percent who are the beneficiaries of what the producer provides, which is affordable food choices. He said ultimately the consumer has the most to gain from passage of the Right to Farm amendment.


I had the opportunity at the recent National Association of Farm Broadcasters to talk with Brian Klippenstein of Protect the Harvest. Click or tap here to listen to the conversation.

The Oklahoma Ag in the Classroom program aims to reach more of the state's students and teachers. The education program is designed to raise agricultural literacy among school age youth across the state. Cheri Long is one of the state coordinators for the Oklahoma Ag in the Classroom program. Long said the ag literacy program is offered to pre-Kindergarten students all the way to 8th grade and the program is now expanding into high schools.


"Our students and even some of our teachers, they don't understand where their food and fiber comes from," Long said. "We need to get that impressed upon them as they grow and mature and become adults because they are going to be the ones that are going to be making our decisions as far as legislation goes and we want them to understand that agriculture is important."


The Oklahoma Ag in the Classroom is a joint project of Oklahoma Cooperative Extension Service, 4-H Youth Development, Oklahoma Department of Agriculture, Food and Forestry's (ODAFF), and the Oklahoma State Department of Education. Long said the curriculum is connected to the state standards as the program incorporates agriculture in reading, science, math and social studies lessons.


Last week, the Oklahoma Ag in the Classroom received gifts from Chisholm Trail Farm Credit, Farm Credit of East Central Oklahoma and CoBank totaling $20,000. Long said part of the funds will be used to develop financial literacy cards for middle school and high school.
 
 
I interviewed Long about the efforts of the program. Click or tap here to hear the full conversation. They also talk about the hands on lessons, including a new specialty crop Monopoly game featuring Oklahoma crops.


Cheri Long will also be joining me for my weekly In the Field report on KWTV News9 in the Oklahoma City market on this coming Saturday morning at 6:40 AM.


For more information on the Ag In The Classroom program, click here.

Glenn Selk, Oklahoma State University Emeritus Extension Animal Scientist, writes in the latest Cow-Calf Newsletter.


Most areas of Oklahoma have had adequate summer forage to allow pregnant replacement heifers to be in excellent body condition going into late fall and winter. Now producers are faced with the challenge of maintaining body condition on the replacement heifers through the calving season and into next spring. As the title of this article suggests: "Body condition score at calving is the key to success." Body condition (or amount of fatness) is evaluated by a scoring system that ranges from 1 (severely emaciated) to 9 (very obese)


Research data sets have shown conclusively that young cows that calve in thin body condition but regain weight and condition going into the breeding season do NOT rebreed at the same rate as those that calve in good condition and maintain that condition into the breeding season. The following table from Missouri researchers illustrates the number of days between calving to the return to heat cycles depending on body condition at calving and body condition change after calving.  Click or tap here to read more from Dr. Selk. 

The U.S. beef export picture has shown improvement in recent years. This year has been a year of retrenchment for international sales. U.S. beef exports are down both in volume and value for 2015. U.S. Meat Export Federation (USMEF) President and CEO Phil Seng said there are some bright spots to point to.


"I think one of our exciting success stories has been in the Korean market," Seng said. "We worked very hard in Korea. Our numbers are up in Korea for beef and pork. I think the Korean market has been very, very positive for us."


There are other success stories in the international market place. Seng said the U.S. has had export growth in Mexico, Europe, Honduras, Singapore and Taiwan.  While U.S. beef and exports have had a tough year in 2015, USMEF is optimistic beef and pork exports will increase in 2016.

We are in the middle of a three part feature conversation with Phil Seng that is being heard across Oklahoma and the region on the program- the Beef Buzz.  Click or tap here to hear more in today's report from Phil on his export outlook for 2016.

It is shaping up to be a wet Thanksgiving holiday for 2015- and could turn into a really slick, dangerous Friday and Saturday for a lot of folks after Thursday.

Alan Crone with the News on 6, based in Tulsa, writes "A strong storm system will bring rain and thunderstorms to the area Thursday with much colder air flowing across the state from the northwest to southeast by Thursday night.   Some locations across northwestern OK may experience some light freezing rain Friday and Saturday."

He adds "The data continue to support increasing low level moisture with water values extremely high for late November.   This means showers and storms will be efficient rain-makers with pockets of moderate to heavy rainfall a possibility for Thursday and part of Friday morning. "


Jed Castles with News9 is also watching things from his OKC vantage point- and offers this graphic showing the potential for ice from this wintery storm that is projected to slam into Oklahoma before you get to all of your leftovers.



It all means that we are looking at a wet Thanksgiving day (but not especially cold) and then the bottom drops out of the thermometer for Friday into the weekend- making Black Friday more miserable and making Bedlam Saturday night in Stillwater really difficult, depending on what parts of this storm land on the OSU campus.

Click here for the central/western Oklahoma forecast from David Payne and News9

Click here for the eastern Oklahoma forecast from Travis Meyer and his News on 6 team.

Markets, government offices and most businesses will be closed tomorrow as the United States celebrates Thanksgiving.

In the case of the ag futures- they are closed tomorrow and will have a short trading session on Friday.

Most livestock auction barns are closed today and into this coming weekend- check with the auction market you work with before you plan on loading any cattle to head to town.

While you may hear us on the radio in some areas tomorrow and Friday- we will not be publishing an email either day- we return to your inbox on Monday morning- the last day of November, 2015.

To you and yours from our RON team- Happy Thanksgiving!!!

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