The Martin Luther King Holiday does mean many things are in the midst of a three day holiday- including the stock market and ag futures being closed today.  Banks are also closed as are government offices.

However, the livestock auction barns that normally operate on Mondays will be selling cattle today as they normally do and businesses have normal business hours.

On this Monday- we are now five days away from the Inauguration of President Elect Donald Trump- and we continue to wait on his selection of who will  head up the US Department of Agriculture. 

The Trump Transition teams promises "soon" but now you really have to wonder if we will have a name by Friday or not.

One thing that will be happening later this week is the confirmation hearing for Scott Pruitt to be the Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency. Oklahoma Senator James Lankford told Jerry Bohnen that while the confirmation of Pruitt will be "noisy" that at the end of the day- he will be confirmed to be the top dog at the EPA.  Click here to read more of Lankford's comments to Bohnen regarding this process that Scott Pruitt faces this week- you can also hear Jerry's conversation with our junior Oklahoma Senator.

One other note this Monday morning- while central Oklahoma dodged more of the ice storm of the last couple of days- our friends in northwestern Oklahoma have been slammed- thousands without power- trees down, electrical lines down and a lot of work ahead in the aftermath of this massive slow moving storm. 

The man who started working at the US Department of Agriculture on the day that President Barack Obama moved into the White House, Tom Vilsack, has left his USDA office overlooking the US Mall for the last time as Secretary of Agriculture. It is reported that Michael Scuse who has been serving as Acting Deputy Secretary becomes Acting Secretary as of today.

Spokesman for President Elect Donald Trump, Sean Spicer, is quoted by Agri-Pulse as saying that he "would expect an announcement on that sometime soon" as he refers to the naming of a nominee to become Trump's Secretary of Agriculture. 

As he prepared to leave USDA after his eight years of service to American Agriculture, Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack sent the following message to all USDA employees:

"I want to take this opportunity on my final day at USDA to express my profound gratitude to the people who work at USDA. Every day, nearly 90,000 people leave their families and the comfort of their home to do the people's work in the People's Department. What an amazing job you do each day for the country.

To continue reading Former Secretary of Agriculture Vilsack's farewell letter, click here.

Last week, the Oklahoma Cattlemen's Association was one of more than 30 different cattle organizations that sent letters of support endorsing Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt for confirmation as EPA Administrator to members of the US senate.

"It is time that the EPA has a leader who understands that agriculture and environment are not opposing terms clashing against each other, but rather America's farmers and ranchers are the original stewards of the precious natural resources our Country so enjoy ---Pruitt is such a leader," OCA President, Charlie Swanson stated in the letter.

"We admire that he firmly supports the United States Constitution and will respect the role, responsibility and proper authority of the Agency he has been chosen to lead," Swanson said.

In addition to the letter to the Oklahoma Senators- the OCA organized a letter of support that was signed by 37 state cattle organizations that represent cattle producers from coast to coast- also offering support for Scott Pruitt. The Cattle Industry letter was sent to the Chairman and the Ranking Member of the Environment and Public Works Committee, who will host Pruitt in his Confirmation Hearing on January 18th.

Click here to read more and for a chance to view these letters for yourself.

In the January edition of his Food Demand Survey (FooDS), Dr. Jayson Lusk, Oklahoma State University Regents Professor, posed an ad hoc question this month pertaining to food waste in addition to the normal survey. Based on questions formulated in a journal article by Violeta Stancu, subjects were asked to specify how much of each food item from an attached list, did they buy and/or grow are thrown away in their household in a regular week. The food items listed included: food, milk and dairy products, fresh fruits and vegetables, meat and fish, and bread and other bakery products.

Subjects could answer from five listed responses: hardly any, less than a tenth, more than a tenth but less than a quarter, more than a quarter but less than a half, and more than a half.

Lusk reports that the most common answer for each item was "hardly any."

Participants were asked to estimate a percentage of food thrown away in their homes for each item. Fruits and vegetables were ranked the highest at 12.7 percent, with meat and fish ranked the lowest at 9.8 percent.

To read more about the survey, plus a chance to view the results of this month's survey, click here.

Lots of talk has taken place for some time now between the National Cattlemen's Beef Association and the CME Group about how to make the markets better, more transparent, less volatile and more reactive to fundamentals. NCBA's President-elect Craig Uden told me that he has confidence in the direction the discussions have taken.

"As we went through, we looked at volatility, we looked at price discovery and contract specs," Uden listed. "Volatility is somewhat settled down and as the market has kind of collapsed and found a bottom. But, there's still a lot of things that we have to deal with."

As talks continue, Uden insists that there are still many more conference calls scheduled to take place to give the organizations opportunities to discuss potential solutions including balancing contracts to better reflect that cattle that are available today, or looking into the advantages and disadvantages of cash settlements and other delivery points. And while he agrees that progress has been made concerning price discovery and with tools like the new Fed Cattle Exchange platform, there is still much more that needs to be considered in making the markets function at their best.

"I think there's a lot of moving parts, there's never a silver bullet," Uden concluded. "As soon as we fix this, something else will pop up and we'll probably have to deal with something else down the way."

You can hear this edition of the Beef Buzz with Uden on his perspective regarding talks between NCBA and the CME Group to improve the function of the markets, by clicking here.

Cotton growers are now one step closer to complete access to the most innovative weed control technology available. Enlist Duo herbicide has received federal registration for use on Enlist cotton, which will allow growers to use an additional mode of action postemergence. For 2017, the Enlist cotton trait will be available exclusively in PhytoGen cottonseed.

The EPA has expanded the use of Enlist Duo herbicide to include Enlist cotton after previously registering this technology for use on Enlist corn and Enlist soybeans in 15 states. In addition, the EPA broadened the geography for application of Enlist Duo to 34 states. This covers a vast majority of the cotton, corn and soybean acres in the United States.

For cotton growers who are facing tough-to-control weeds, once state registrations are received, this registration means they'll have access to the full benefits of the Enlist weed control system starting in the 2017 season, including postemergence applications of Enlist Duo herbicide - a combination of glyphosate and new 2,4-D choline - as well as glufosinate. Tolerance to these three modes of action offers growers more flexibility and better performance in their weed control programs.

Click here to continue reading about Dow's Enlist Duo Herbicide.