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. W.B. Johnston is welcoming all fall crops this harvest. They have space to store your grain, and they look forward to serving you!! For more on Johnston Enterprises- click here for their website that features their grain, ports and seed business!

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The rains have arrived just in time for many wheat fields planted into little or no precipitation. The hope now is that both wheat and canola will use the rain to help establish a good root system as we wait on winter to arrive in another few weeks.

We pointed you to the ag portion of the Mesonet this past Friday- and got a nice email from Al Sutherland about one of the new enhancements that you will see everytime you go there looking for rainfall information. Al tells us that "One change we recently made was going to non-plugin rainfall maps on the Mesonet.org and Agweather.mesonet.org websites. Why did we do this? The new rainfall maps have Mesonet data and radar adjusted rainfall amounts from the National Weather Service's River Forecast Center. The old version contoured the rainfall colors by interpolation between Mesonet sites. The new rainfall and radar maps show a more accurate picture of rainfall across the state.

While the southeastern portions of the state got little precipitation from this last go- round- the higher chances of rain for this evening are in southeastern Oklahoma- from 60% to 80% in places like Atoka and McAlester. Places like Altus and Frederick are less likely to get rain- their POPs are thirty to forty percent.

A little over a week ago, Eastern Livestock began issuing unfunded checks to producers for livestock purchased by Eastern. Numerous checks written by Eastern started being returned as "Refer to Maker" and later as "Insufficient Funds," according to the Livestock Marketing Association.
The Grain Inspection, Packers and Stockyards Administration, which is part of the U.S. Department of Agriculture, sent investigators to the facility after receiving complaints about the returned checks.
"Currently, GIPSA has investigators at Eastern Livestock," Jay Johnson, director of the agency's regional office in Des Moines, Iowa, said this past Wednesday. "There appears to be a significant amount that is owed for cattle to sellers in several states. The amount unpaid likely exceeds $94 million."

By Friday of this past week, that figure had grown to $130 million in unpaid bills. The USDA said the $130 million included $81 million in checks returned by banks.
On Tuesday, Fifth Third Bank filed a lawsuit against Eastern Livestock in state court in Hamilton County, Ohio. The Cincinnati-based bank claims a security interest in all of Eastern Livestock's assets, according to the Livestock Marketing Association. The bank requested a temporary restraining order, permanent injunction and the emergency appointment of a receiver.

One bit of encouraging news for producers and others who may be owed money by this group comes from Scott Dewald in the Oklahoma Cattlemen's Association weekly newsletter. Scot writes as of Friday that "Some of our producers who called us late last week have called back to say their checks have been honored." He was referring to producers who had called about the problems with Eastern over the last week or so.

Click here for the most recent news item on this story that reflects numbers greater than $100 million.

However, AFBF Policy Specialist Mary Kay Thatcher believes that the Democratic leadership will only provide a few months of tax relief in extending the end of life of the so called Bush tax cuts by perhaps six months. She also sees some temporary fix for a few months on the so called Death Tax, which currently stands at zero, but is set to return with a relatively small one million dollar exemption and a tax of 55% on all value above that. We talked with Mary Kay about all of these lame duck issues and more this past week while in Kansas City for the 2010 National Association of Farm Broadcasters annual meeting.

Meanwhile- AFBF President Bob Stallman wrote President Obama a letter asking him to step up and help Congress get some positive things done between now and the end of the year. You can read more about that letter- as well as hear our conversation with Mary Kay by clicking on the LINK below.

Click here for more on the Lame Duck from a Mary Kay Thatcher Perspective

This past week, talks that seemed to hold a lot of promise failed to deliver on a revised deal that would suit both sides. Doud was hopeful as those talks were held that we could get the clock ticking on reducing tariffs on US Beef that currently stand at 40%. The FTA was expected to reduce that tariff to zero over a fifteen year period.

Still, there are a lot of positives when it comes to US Beef exports into that part of the world- both into South Korea as well as into Japan. Click on the LINK below and get our Monday Beef Buzz with Gregg Doud- as heard on many of the Radio Oklahoma Network stations. Of course, we have this Beef Buzz and many of our previous shows up on line on our website- click on the Beef Buzz button on the left hand side of any page on our website.

Click on Today's Beef Buzz- featuring our conversation with Gregg Doud of the NCBA

It appears that the students studied the testimony to come to their conclusions that the expert witnesses that appeared in Federal court got it wrong. In a story on the STIR website, ""Based on our findings, we conclude the defense experts made a series of claims that are not supported by the modern limnological literature and the weight of the evidence strongly suggests poultry litter disposal as the most likely cause of eutrophication of TKR (Tenkiller Reservoir)."

Click on the LINK below to read the rest of the story offered on this review of the testimony from earlier this year in the Edmondson Poultry Lawsuit that claims the analysis done in the watershed was wrong.

Click here for the STIR story on Lake Tenkiller and the Edmondson Poultry Lawsuit

The task force will recommend that the board trim the number of committees to eight by combining two committees that focus on producer services, education and communications and two others that focus on nutrition and pork safety. It also is recommending that a committee focused on niche marketing become a subcommittee of the merged producer group and that the board assure that producers who specialize in providing products for niche markets be included on all board committees.

The President of the National Pork Board has ties to Oklahoma's swine industry. Dr. Gene Nemechek of Springdale, Ark., is a swine quality assurance veterinarian with the live swine division of the Tyson Pork Group, Inc. for Tyson Fresh Meats, Inc. Dr. Nemechek has a shared responsibility to work with the Tyson pork production units in Arkansas, Oklahoma, and Missouri as well as customer quality assurance for the Tyson Pork Group weaned pig and feeder pig customers. In addition, Wathina Luthi of Gage is a member of the board that oversees the national pork checkoff.

Click here for more details on the meeting planned for this week by the National Pork Board

State Representative and farmer John Enns nearly lost his life in 2004 when his tractor rolled over breaking his back in three places. He was told he would never walk again.
"There are so many of us that got so many things going on, and boy, I tell you what, just split second and you're done, and there's a lot of people that get injured," Enns said. "I tend to say rollover accidents aren't that common but one a year is too much."

Click on the LINK below to read more on this story and see the video as well of this farm safety message reminder for everyone out on the farm and ranch. As Rep. Enns said so well- it only takes seconds for your life to change- or to end.

Click here for the full story about the John Enns Campaign for Rollbars on Tractors

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.

Click here to check out WWW.OklahomaFarmReport.Com

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:
Our Daily Market Wrapup from the Radio Oklahoma Network with Ed Richards and Tom Leffler- analyzing the Futures Markets from the previous Day-
Ron on RON Markets as heard on K101 mornings with cash and futures reviewed- includes where the Cash Cattle market stands, the latest Feeder Cattle Markets Etc.
Previous Day's Wheat Market Recap- Two Pager From The Kansas City Board of Trade looks at all three US Wheat Futures Exchanges with extra info on Hard Red Winter Wheat and the why of that day's market.
Daily Oklahoma Cash Grain Prices- As Reported by the Oklahoma Dept. of Agriculture. <
The National Daily Feeder & Stocker Cattle Summary- as prepared by USDA.
The National Daily Slaughter Cattle Summary- as prepared by USDA.
Finally, Here is the Daily Volume and Price Summary from the Texas Cattle Feeders Association.