Howdy Neighbors!

Here's your morning farm news headlines from the Director of Farm Programming for the Radio Oklahoma Network, Ron Hays. We are proud to have KIS Futures as a regular sponsor of our daily email update. KIS Futures provides Oklahoma Farmers & Ranchers with futures & options hedging services in the livestock and grain markets- Click here for the free market quote page they provide us for our website or call them at 1-800-256-2555- and their IPHONE App, which provides all electronic futures quotes is available at the App Store- click here for the KIS Futures App for your Iphone.

We are also excited to have as one of our sponsors for the daily email Producers Cooperative Oil Mill, with 64 years of progress through producer ownership. Call Brandon Winters at 405-232-7555 for more information on the oilseed crops they handle, including sunflowers and canola- and remember they post closing market prices for canola and sunflowers on the PCOM website- go there by clicking here.

And we salute our longest running email sponsor- Midwest Farm Shows, producer ofthe recent Southern Plains Farm Show as well as the Tulsa Farm Show held each December. Click here for the Midwest Farm Show main website to learn more about their lineup of shows around the country!

We invite you to listen to us on great radio stations across the region on the Radio Oklahoma Network weekdays- if you missed this morning's Farm News - or you are in an area where you can't hear it- click here for this morning's Farm news from Ron Hays on RON.

If you have received this by someone forwarding it to you, you are welcome to subscribe and get this weekday update sent to you directly by clicking here.

Earlier in the day, Congressman Lucas was also on the House Floor- defending a $15 million allocation for watershed flood control structure rehab. Click here to read more about that effort which was successful- and to hear Congressman Lucas' comments at that point in the debate.

Last night, Lucas was standing up against two long time farm policy critics- Ron Kind of Wisconsin and Earl Blumenauer of Oregon. The Blumenauer amendment would be especially damaging as it would effectively lower the payment limitation to $125,000 per farm.

We have audio of Congressman Lucas speaking against the Kind amendment on the floor last night- as well as the texts of the two overnight "Dear Colleague" letters written by the Chairman of the House Ag Committee. Click on the LINK below for our headline story this morning of Congressman Lucas taking on those who want to change farm policy through the Approps process.

Click here for our coverage of the FY 2012 Ag Appropriations bill that continues today on Capitol Hill.

On today's Beef Buzz, we hear from Colin Woodall, Vice President of Government Affairs for the National Cattlemen's Beef Association. Woodall offers an update from the NCBA perspective about the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Grain Inspection, Packers and Stockyards Administration's (GIPSA) proposed rule on livestock and poultry marketing. Woodall says the U.S. House of Representatives will likely vote on the 2012 agriculture appropriations bill as early as this afternoon, which includes language to defund the proposed GIPSA rule.

Late Wednesday evening, Ohio Democrat Marcy Kaptur took to the House floor and spoke against the section of the bill that directs the Grain Inspection, Packers and Stockyards Administration to suspend rulemaking on the GIPSA rule. She accused the National Cattlemen's Beef Association of intimidating and harassing supporters of the proposal, which was first unveiled by GIPSA a year ago.

Kaptur elected to not push an amendment that would have called for the House to restore funding to the USDA budget that would allow GIPSA to proceed with the implementation of the measure. She appears to be confident that the Senate will restore funding to USDA for this effort- and that the next battle will be in a conference committee between the two legislative bodies as they hammer out the final differences later this summer.

Click here for our Beef Buzz where you can hear from both Colin Woodall of NCBA as well as Congresswoman Marcy Kaptur.

Our Oklahoma FSA folks have been working hard to supply us with a state breakdown of the latest Conservation Reserve Program- and we will detail those in our Friday email.

We will also be summarizing the yield plots to date of the 2011 wheat plots that are managed by the OSU Wheat Improvement Team and supported by the Oklahoma Wheat Commission. Dr. Jeff Edwards oversees the Wheat Improvement Team efforts in pulling these numbers together- and we will offer you the latest on these numbers on Friday morning as well.

For example, Mike Berry, manager of the Cotton Growers Cooperative gin in Altus, has this to say about cotton production in the Lugert-Altus Irrigation District: "Most of the cotton growers here have used up the six inches of water allotted to them this year. Some rain fell north of Altus last week, a little in the Blair region. Before we used the six inches alloted this year, Lake Altus was about one-half full at 47,000 acre feet. After the six inches was used up, there is only 30,000 acre feet of water left in the lake. There will have to be a lot of rainfall in the watershed north of the lake to help out this year."

Further north- Rodney Sawatsky, manager of the Midwest Farmers, Inc., gin at Clinton, says a lot of cotton has been planted in the region with some of it growing well and some of it in trouble. "We have gotten some rain, but it has been very scattered," he said. "Farmers are still planting cotton. We will just have to wait to see if any more rain will come our way soon."

Click here for the full rundown of cotton crop conditions from the Red River north to Kansas.

The multi-million dollar project will include national television advertising, coupled with regional print and radio advertising as well as an online presence. The centerpiece of the education effort is a 30-second spot that will air across the nation on Sunday-morning network talk shows, beginning this Sunday, June 19th. The ads feature the tagline, "Biodiesel. America's Advanced Biofuel" and focus on biodiesel's viability here and now. The television spot highlights biodiesel use in the Dallas area to demonstrate the fuel's practical, common-sense appeal in communities across the country.

"The public generally doesn't know that there is an advanced biofuel here now," said Joe Jobe, CEO of the National Biodiesel Board (NBB), the industry trade association. "This is not some pipedream. Biodiesel today is fueling long-haul trucks from Florida to California, municipal buses in Texas, Ford pickups in Detroit, and Volkswagens in New York City."

Click here to read more about the PR efforts that Bio-diesel Supporters Are Mounting.

"Renewable, home-grown, clean energy from American producers is vital to our country's energy future because it reduces our reliance on foreign oil and creates good-paying production jobs that cannot be exported," said Vilsack. "Today's announcement will make a significant contribution to rural America and create nearly 4,000 jobs, demonstrating the great economic potential the production of renewable energy holds for our rural communities."

It is estimated that each of the four project areas and conversion facilities would earn about $50 million per year. According to industry estimates, a large number of biorefinery, agriculture and support jobs will be created in each area. The estimates are: Ashtabula, Ohio - 1,210 jobs added; Paragould, Ark. - 750 jobs added; Aurora, Mo. - 960 jobs added; and Columbia, Mo. - 980 jobs added. These numbers are estimated based on an economic impact study that measures the amount of jobs the projects will generate at full production levels.

Click Here for More Details About These Four Locations and How USDA is Attempting to Jumpstart Cellulosic Ethanol Production

DuPont has been bragging about the vitality of its seed business- Pioneer Hi-Bred, to several investor conferences in recent days. "Pioneer is on pace for strong growth in its global business in 2011," said Paul E. Schickler, Pioneer president. "In North America where the planting season is coming to a close, we anticipate an increase in corn and soybean market share coupled with mid single-digit price increases, in line with our objectives." Click here to read more about the success that Pioneer is enjoying in 2011.

We'll have more details soon- but the Southern Plains Beef Symposium in Ardmore is going to be really great here in 2011- the date this year is Saturday, August 13, 2011. This tremendous one day beef cattle seminar is a joint effort of the Noble Foundation and the OSU Extension folks- and I look forward to helping emcee the 2011 event coming up in August. One of the morning speakers will be Dr. Frank Mitloehner from the University of California- Davis who is a leading authority globally on greenhouse gases and cattle production- and the great story that the beef cattle industry in this country has to tell about producing beef in a very sustainable manner.

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.