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Placements are likely to be well under the numbers of twelve months ago in Friday's USDA Cattle on Feed report. The January Cattle on Feed Report will be released by the US Department of Agriculture on Friday, January 20th at 2:00 PM central time, after the cattle futures markets are closed for the week.

On today's Beef Buzz, we feature comments from Erica Rosa-Sanko of the Livestock Market Information Center out of Denver, Colorado, as she offers the pre- report estimates from the LMIC. The Center expects sharply lower placements in December 2011 versus December 2010- perhaps as much as eight to nine percent fewer numbers of calves going into the feedlots. She predicts that marketings will be lower by one to two percent, and LMIC is predicting the January 20th report will show three percent more cattle in the nation's feedlots as of January 1, 2012 compared to January 1, 2011.

Average guesses from a number of analysts contacted by Dow Jones showed placements at higher levels than the LMIC expectations- but still 5.8% smaller than a year ago. Rich Nelson of Allendale told Dow Jones that "this is probably the start of this big drop in placements that will extend for a few months."

Click here for our story on OklahomaFarmReport.Com with the Allendale predictions- and our Beef Buzz featuring comments from Erica Rosa-Sanko of the LMIC. We also have a link to yesterday's beef Buzz, which featured comments from Dr. James Mintert at Purdue who helped us preview the USDA Cattle Inventory Report that comes a week from today on January 27.  

Dudley Butler Resigns from GIPSA at USDA- R-Calf Offers High Praise  

J. Dudley Butler has resigned as administrator of USDA's Grain Inspection, Packers and Stockyards Administration, effective next week, USDA confirmed today. His resignation brings to an end a controversial tenure marked by an attempt to toughen regulations on livestock and poultry marketing. 

Butler oversaw the development of the controversial proposal to reform livestock and poultry marketing practices that became known as the GIPSA rule. It aimed to give Butler's agency expanded authority under the 1921 Packers and Stockyards Act to protect livestock and contract chicken producers from unfair, fraudulent or retaliatory practices.


The rule was originally published in June 2010- was subjected to intense debate for and against, and ended up having only relatively small sections of the sweeping proposal actually finalized this past year.


One group that was a major supporter of the GIPSA rule- and a defender of Dudley Butler was R-Calf USA. On Thursday afternoon, they released a lengthly statement praising Butler for his service at USDA- and pledging their intentions to see major reforms eventually be adopted.

Click here to read more about the resignation- and Bill Bullard's comments about Dudley Butler.  

Latest Drought Monitor Update- One Third of Oklahoma Out of Drought (for now)

Oklahoma now is slightly more than one third "drought free" according to the latest US Drought Monitor graphic released Thursday morning by NOAA. The amount of Oklahoma countryside that remains in "exceptional drought" or D4 remains at just under four percent- and almost all of that most troubled territory is in Cimarron and Texas Counties in the Panhandle. A small bit of Tillman County also reflects that deepest red of exceptional drought. At the other end of the spectrum, 21% of Oklahoma is out of drought and the slightly less "abnormally dry" ratings in this latest update.

Click here to see the latest Drought Monitor graphic of Oklahoma- and to read more about how our current conditions stack up versus the start of the Water year back October first, 2011 as well as versus last January.

And- you can click here to jump over to the latest update from Gary McManus which looks at the current dryness in the state from several different angles.  

No Getting Around It- Lightsquared Broadband Interfers with GPS

A year of testing by a federal interagency committee has unanimously determined there "appear to be no practical solutions or mitigations" to GPS interference caused by LightSquared's broadband technology.


That was the main message of a letter sent last week by the group's co-chairmen to the Department of Commerce, noting that the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has also concluded the technology could interfere with flight-safety systems that depend on GPS.


The co-chairs of the interagency review panel, who are deputy secretaries of the Departments of Defense and Transportation, indicated in their letter that the level of interference, even with proposed fixes, is so severe "no additional testing is warranted at this time."

Click here for more on this most recent testing- and more on the agricultural angle of this battle over wireless broadband and GPS. Obviously, wireless broadband would be a Godsend for rural Oklahoma and America- but not at the expense of the multitude of GPS devices that are essential to precision ag and a lot more.  

A Triple Whammy- Kim Anderson Explains Lower Wheat Prices- and We Have This Weekend's SUNUP Preview

It's a triple whammy that has slammed wheat prices in recent weeks- and Oklahoma State University Extension Grain Marketing Economist Dr. Kim Anderson is saying this weekend on SUNUP- there could be more downside ahead.


Dr. Anderson tells SUNUP host Lyndall Stout there are three reasons why wheat prices are in retreat- US and Global Wheat Stocks that are relatively high, Wheat acres in the US that are three percent larger than a year ago- and corn prices that are moving lower- so much so that corn prices are no longer a support point under cash wheat prices. Anderson points out that over the last couple of years, we have seen corn prices higher than soft red winter wheat prices- and that has been a strong support under wheat prices.

You can watch Lyndall and Kim Saturday morning on your local OETA outlet during the SUNUP telecast- or you can catch our audio preview of this duo by clicking here and jumping over to our story which includes the audio.   

In addition, you can take a look at the rest of the lineup for SUNUP this Saturday morning at 7:30 AM on OETA.  

Call for Nominations for the 2012 Inductee into the Oklahoma Ag Hall of Fame 

The Oklahoma Department of Agriculture, Food, and Forestry (ODAFF) is seeking nominations for the Governor's Outstanding Achievement Award in Agriculture. This award, created in 1998, honors leaders in the agriculture industry who have exemplary personal values and agricultural achievements in Oklahoma. The award winner will be inducted into the Oklahoma Agriculture Hall of Fame located at the Oklahoma Department of Agriculture, Food, and Forestry.


Previous recipients of the award exhibited high standards of conduct, leadership, innovation, and accomplishment in agriculture. These individuals were from different parts of Oklahoma and many times were not widely known outside of their specific agricultural groups or commodities. However, each Hall of Fame inductee has served as a community leader in addition to being an agricultural producer who made a significant impact on the lives of others.

Deadline for the application to be into the ODAFF is February 17, 2012.  Click here to read more about the award- and we have details and additional links which will get you on your way to nominating someone for the 2012 Oklahoma Ag Hall of Fame inductee.  

Bits and Pieces- Karen is BOLD- and the Real Beef Hormone Story   

This Saturday- after some technical hiccups- we will have as our guest dietician Karen Meyers talking about the BOLD study and its findings that show lean beef can be a part of a plan to actually lower cholesterol in your body. We have an audio conversation that we had earlier with Karen- and you can hear it by clicking here.  

The study looked at people with elevated levels of cholesterol and there were four groups in the study conducted by Penn State researchers- two of the groups received four and 5.4 ounces of lean beef daily respectively- those groups ended up with significant reductions in cholesterol levels by the end of the study.  Meyers, who works with the Oklahoma Beef Council, will talk about what the takeaways from this study during our regular In the Field segment this Saturday morning at around 6:40 AM on KWTV, News9 in the Oklahoma City area.  

And- we have posted on our website a great MythCrusher, courtesy of the American Meat Institute. There are lots of claims running around of animals who have been raised with no growth hormones- which implies that there are no hormones in the meat.  That's not accurate, as all cattle have naturally occurring hormones in their body- and the difference in the amount between an animal that has been implanted and one that has not is truly a non factor.   

We have a great Youtube that we invite you to jump over to our website and view- Janet Riley talks with Dr. Rhonda Miller of Texas A&M about hormones in your beef- click here and take a listen and look.