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At the OACD Meeting This Morning- Noble Foundation's Bill Buckner Talking Soil Health Institute

 

The 2016 Oklahoma Association of Conservation Districts Annual Meeting is underway at the Reed Center in Midwest City- and one of the morning speakers to those assembled in the name of Conservation is the President and CEO of the Noble Foundation, Bill Buckner. 

Buckner has been one of the key players in organizing and launching the Soil Health Institute in recent days- and he will be likely explaining why the need for this entity as well as where he is hoping the soil health movement will be going in the near future.

We caught up with Mr. Buckner at the tail end of this past Friday's Texoma Cattlemen's Conference in Ardmore- which was sponsored by the Noble Foundation, and we talked about this virtual institution and the direction it may be taking in figuring how what soil health is, what we need to know about it and how we take the knowledge we learn and turn it into better soil health to feed the world in a sustainable way.

Click here for our conversation with Bill Buckner- and click here for the agenda of the OACD meeting that is happening today and tomorrow in Midwest City.

 

okPORK Inducts Auctioneer Butch Young Into Their Hall of Fame- and Hands Out Other Honors Friday 

 
The newest member of the okPORK Hall of Fame is auctioneer Butch Young, who was so honored at the 57th Annual Oklahoma Pork Congress in Norman this past Friday evening.

"He was always working for the breeder," Kim Brock, okPORK Hall of Fame member said. "His knowledge of the industry is very important, but it was his wit, his personality, his entertaining value as an auctioneer that I always thought made him the very best."

Read more here about Butch Young and see the video tribute shown Friday night at the Pork Congress banquet.

Others that were honored by the Oklahoma Pork Council at this year's Pork Congress(Click on their name to see more details)-

Gayle Mortenson was presented the Distinguished Service Award for 2016.

State Representative Ben Sherrer of Pryor was named the Outstanding Legislator by okPORK.

and Kim Peterson of Guymon was selected as the Pork Ambassador for 2016.

From the Texoma Cattlemen's Conference- Roger Bernard of Informa Economics on Policy and Politics

 

Roger Bernard was one of the featured speakers at the Fourth Annual Texoma Cattlemen's Conference in Ardmore on February 26th. Bernard has been talking Washington politics and policy issues impacting agriculture for decades- and over the last five years, has been a policy analyst for Informa Economics.

We have known Roger for probably 35 years- since the early 80s when he was starting his career in ag journalism on the radio. In recent years, he has teamed up with Jim Wiesemeyer at Informa and they are the Washington Watchers for the Informa group.

Ahead of his presentation at the Texoma Cattlemen's Conference, we talked with Roger about a variety of topics- including the GMO Labeling Debate in the Senate, TPP Prospects in Congress in 2016, WOTUS, the Cottonseed Arguments and Elections and Agriculture.

Click here for our story and a chance to hear a wide ranging conversation that we had with one of the smarter DC watchers on the food and agricultural beat.

Oklahoma Lopez Foods Gifts $100,000 to OSU's Food and Ag Products Center 

 

 

Oklahoma State University is a little further down the road in being a leader in food safety thanks in part to a generous gift from Lopez Foods.


The Oklahoma City food manufacturer has provided a $100,000 gift to support OSU's food safety program in educating and preparing students for food safety careers and providing companies with food safety needs.


"OSU's food safety program is a wonderful opportunity for the university, students and food industry," said John Patrick Lopez, chief operating officer for Lopez Foods. "We did not want to pass up the opportunity to help support the first undergraduate food safety program in the nation and to help fill the need for food safety careers in the industry."

Read more about the Food Safety Program and the Lopez gift by clicking or tapping here.

 

Certification in the BQA Program Just a Few Mouse Clicks Away- and It's Free

 

More cattle producers from across the country are getting trained in the best cattle management practices available today. The Beef Quality Assurance (BQA) program has gained fresh momentum in recent years- especially with the offering of free certification again through sponsorship from Boehringer Ingelheim Vetmedica, Inc. (BIVI).

National Cattlemen's Beef Association's BQA Associate Director Chase DeCoite said this is a great partnership that allows NCBA to extend the great benefits of BQA to more beef and dairy producers in offering online training and continuing education within the cattle industry. Free online BQA certification is once again available through the fifteenth of April.

We talked with Chase about the program back at the Cattle Industry Convention- and we feature his comments this morning on our Beef Buzz- as a reminder that you can get this important training for free if you go on line.  Click here for our Beef Buzz with Chase.

And By the Way- if you prefer to do a non online BQA training- those are out there as well- in fact, the Noble Foundation has one coming up a week from today- click here for details on that live and personal BQA training opportunity.

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Lincoln to Local- Farm Bureau's John Collison Talks Bills Moving On- Or Not

This N That- ICYMI Drake Boyce of Oklahoma FFA, Express Reminder and Commodity Classic Week

 

In Case You Missed It- our guest Saturday morning for our In the Field TV segment that we do for KWTV News9 featured Drake Boyce, the State President of the Oklahoma FFA.

If you don't do 6:40 AM on Saturdays- you can check out what we talked about with Drake- in fact you can see the video and then also hear the additional off camera audio interview by clicking here.

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We wanted to remind you that the 2016 Spring Bull Sale of Express Ranches is coming this Friday, March 4th- details are here- and whether you attend the Express sale or not- if you are a cattle producer, you will want to go and listen to our conversation with Express Ranches President, Jarold Callahan, about how to work with all the production data available from most seedstock producers about the bulls they have raised and are selling.  Genomic EPDs is changing the accuracy of the information we have- which means it is more important that ever before to understand which EPDs are of the most importance for your cattle operation.

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Later this week- we will be covering the 2016 Commodity Classic and reporting back to you from New Orleans.  Commodity Classic now includes the joint gatherings of the National Association of Wheat Growers, National Sorghum Producers, American Soybean Association and the National Corn Growers Association.

They have a huge trade show planned this year- and we will be focusing our coverage mainly on the wheat, soybean and grain sorghum activities.

For the first time ever, we are pleased to have a sponsor of our Commodity Classic coverage- BASF- they invite producers to grow smart with BASF, and get the most, acre after acre, season after season.

Our thanks to Midwest Farms Shows, P & K Equipment,  American Farmers & Ranchers, Stillwater Milling Company, Oklahoma AgCredit,  the Oklahoma Cattlemens Association, Pioneer Cellular, Farm Assure and  KIS Futures 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- at NO Charge!

 

 

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