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. One of the great success stories of the Johnston brand is Wrangler Bermudagrass- the most widely planted true cold-tolerant seeded forage bermudagrass in the United States. For more on Johnston Enterprises- click here for their website that features their grain, ports and seed business!

And we are proud to have P & K Equipment/ P & K Wind Energy as one of our regular sponsors of our daily email update. P & K is the premiere John Deere dealer in Oklahoma, with ten locations to serve you, and the P & K team are excited about their new Wind Power program, as they offer Endurance Wind Power wind turbines. Click here for more from the P&K website.

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Unlike other industry officials, Woodall was actually in the room with the Secretary for the briefing and reports that Vilsack said approximately 52,000 of the pubic submissions were form letters of some type. Vilsack also said USDA will take its time to evaluate the unique comments, and he announced that Chief Economist Joe Glauber's office will conduct a comprehensive cost-benefit analysis of the proposed rule, something that NCBA, other industry groups and members of Congress have sought for months.

We have an audio update with comments from Colin Woodall on our latest Beef Buzz from the Radio Oklahoma Network. The Beef Buzz is heard daily on great radio stations around the region- and you can also go to our website at www.OklahomaFarmReport.Com and click on the Beef Buzz button on the left hand side of any page.

Click here for today's Beef Buzz- featuring the comments of Colin Woodall of the NCBA

Pork export value was third-highest of the year at $407.8 million - trailing only May ($419.3 million) and June ($425.3 million). The October value total was 7 percent higher than September and 9 percent higher than October 2009.

It does appear that in 2010 we have finally crawled back to move ahead of the 2003 value of beef exports that come from the United States- that year is significant because it was the year that we found the "Cow that Stole Christmas" in Washington state. That Canadian dairy cow that tested positive for BSE set the alarm bells off around the world- and caused US beef exports to drop sharply in 2004.

Click on the LINK below to read more about the latest details of the export market- both for beef and pork (and a little bit of info on the lamb exports as well)

Click here for thelatest installment of the great success story of US Meat Exports.

Thanks to Vic Schoonover of NTOK who has provided us with a rundown of where we are on gin activities as we hit mid December. Click on the LINK below for the full rundown that he has provided.

Taking a look at some of the highlights- three of the larger gins in the state (in terms of the number of bales they produce annually) are in Jackson County. Cotton Growers gin, Altus, Ok., reports 85,000 bales ginned so far and anticipation is for 100,000 bales by the end of the season.
Humphreys Cooperative gin, located in the Jackson County community of Humphreys, a few miles east of Altus, has ginned 35,348 bales to date. Receiving both dryland and irrigated cotton, they expect to gin 50,000 bales before the season ends.
Farmers Cooperative gin, Eldorado, Ok., has ginned 25,774 bales to date and is about 75 percent complete for the ginning season. They report yields averaging one and a half bales of lint cotton per acre for dayland and three to four bales per acre of lint cotton for irrigated fields.

Click here for the full rundown of progress being made by cotton gins in processing the 2010 Oklahoma Cotton Crop.

"In most aspects, market prospects for 2011 have not changed appreciably since November, except for the significant wet harvest and wheat quality problems that are occurring in Australia and the emerging understanding of scope of wheat quality problems with the 2010 Canadian crop."

O'Brien sees several factors to watch in 2011 that will impact the wheat market's price direction:
a) Australian and Canadian wheat quality problems in 2010
b) Export limits from Black Sea countries
c) Dry soils and the increased possibility of 2011 winter wheat production problems in the U.S., Russia, and other selected major wheat exporters
d) Continued steady growth in World wheat usage
e) The current availability of sizable, reasonable quality U.S. wheat stocks to help meet World export demand

To read more of what Dan O'Brien has to offer in regards to the current wheat market outlook, click here.

While Independent and very liberal Senator Bernie Sanders wants to raise the Estate tax rate and lower the exemption, the $5 million dollar exemption per person with a tax rate of 35% on everything above that seems fairly safe in the Senate package.
However, the House Democrats are still miffed over the deal cut by the President, without them in the room, and the GOP. Several in their ranks are more vocal about the Death Tax issue- and want the lower exemption and higher tax rate to capture more tax dollars for their social agenda.

The President is making phone calls and trying to bring his party into line with the deal made with the GOP leadership. Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky says while the deal is costly, it is an important first step because stopping the Obama Tax Increases from taking place means you have turned off the spigot of more money for Democratic programs- and set the table for slimming down government in 2011 and beyond.

For more perspective on how this is playing out- click here for the latest analysis with Jamie Dupree on what the House Democrats may be planning to do.

The first AgConnect was held last year in Orlando, Florida. This year's event is sandwiched between two major early in the year national agricultural meetings. Earlier that week, the 2011 Beltwide Cotton Conferences are being held in downtown Atlanta, while the same weekend for AgConnect 2011 will see the American Farm Bureau hold their annual convention in the same location.

Click on the LINK below to jump to our webstory on this event- and you can listen to our conversation with Sara Mooney- for those that are going to the Beltwide Cotton meetings this year- an extra day in Atlanta will give you a chance to check out the show- and for those that are going to the American Farm Bureau convention- you will be in downtown Atlanta at the same time as the show- and will have the chance to check it out as well.

Click here to learn more about the 2011 edition of AgConnect

Next week, there is the regular farm equipment and more auction planned for closing on December 22nd. This will be the final auction for the Big Iron folks for 2010. We appreciate their support of our daily email- and invite you to check out their listings- several Oklahoma pieces of equipment are in the mix for both next week's auction as well as the first sale for 2011.

Click here for the Big Iron website, where you can see details for both today's auction, as well as next week which begins expiring at 10 AM on December 22.

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.