Praise was flowing both ways as the one year anniversary of the enactment of the 2014 Farm Bill was celebrated at a townhall session on the campus of Redlands Community College in El Reno this past Friday- US Ag Secretary Tom Vilsack and Congressman Frank Lucas heaped compliment after compliment on one another during the one and a half hour event.


"While the Secretary and I may not necessarily agree on every comma or every dotted 'i' at every stage of the way and more often the tougher it got, the more frequent the secretary demonstrated a willingness to work with me and my cohorts to act as a catalyst, because secretary understood and appreciated, as an old Governor from Iowa." Lucas continued- saying that the "Secretary had an understanding and appreciation for what we had to do and his people were at our disposal and there were times when as he once told me, if encouraging publicly or privately with various members of leadership will help, I will. If criticizing you helps, I will. But he understands the importance of getting it done and we got it done."


At the same time, Secretary Vilsack praised the leadership of Congressman Lucas in getting the Farm Bill across the finish line.


"No one in the Congress had a greater feel and a greater connection to people in rural areas and to producers than Frank Lucas," Vilsack said. "And because of that concern, which was shared by Collin Peterson, an equally diligent and effective leader on the Democrat side. And on the Senate side, certainly Senator Stabenow really worked very hard to get this done, Senator Roberts as well. The key here was basically working and not giving up and Frank Lucas did not give up. And he understands why this was so important to get done."


About 200 were at the townhall celebration, including yours truly. While the Secretary and the Congressman were up on the small stage, the audience of ag leaders and more was a very impressive group. We snapped quite a few pictures- and you can take a look at them on our FLICKR page- click here for the Farm Bill Anniversary Album. You can also read more or listen to our special audio overview of the session with Secretary Vilsack and Congressman Lucas, by clicking here.    

The opening comments of both Congressman Lucas and Secretary Vilsack are available here.  We will be posting the Q&A session later today.

Traders Surprised By Growth of U.S. Cattle Herd 

Traders expected the U.S. Department of Agriculture would show the nation's cowherd was growing, but the annual report came in bigger than they anticipated. Tom Leffler of Leffler Commodities said traders were surprised by higher than expected numbers for all cattle and calves, size of the nation's calf crop, and beef replacement numbers all coming in higher than trader predictions.


"So we are seeing a lot of numbers that are coming in bigger than expected," Leffler said. "So it does show that herd expansion is in progress and it's running along at a faster pace than what we had anticipated." 


USDA reported the total cattle and calves in the United States totaled 89.8 million head, one percent above the 88.5 million on January 1, 2014. All cows and heifers that have calved, totaled 39 million, up 2 percent from the 38.3 million last year.


Beef cows came in at 29.7 million, up 2 percent from last year. All heifers over 500 pounds totaled 19.2 million, up 1 percent. Beef replacement heifers had the biggest gain, up four percent to 5.8 million.

 

Read or have the opportunity to listen to the full reaction from Tom Leffler, by clicking here.   

Oklahoma Cattlemen Are Aggressive in Herd Rebuilding

The story above has a national perspective of the USDA Cattle Inventory report released on Friday afternoon- and nationally, we have moved the needle in a positive way when it comes to growing the US cattle herd.

The Oklahoma story from the Friday report is more aggressive than the overall national report.   

For example, Oklahoma has jumped back ahead of Missouri to become the second largest Beef Cow state in the US.  The January 1, 2014 report showed Missouri ahead of Oklahoma by 15,000 Beef Cows, while the latest report based on January 1, 2015 shows Oklahoma ahead of Missouri by 19,000 Beef Cows.  The total Oklahoma Beef Cow herd now stands at 1.9 million head. 

Both Texas and Oklahoma showed the most percentage growth of states that have at least a million beef cows- Texas up seven percent and Oklahoma up six percent year over year.  

Texas remains the top Beef Cow state in the US- with 4.18 million Beef Cows as of January first- Oklahoma is second, Missouri third, Nebraska fourth and South Dakota fifth.

The Beef Replacement Heifers in the US jumped up about 220,000 head from January one to January one- and 80,000 of those replacement females are to be found in Oklahoma. 405,000 beef replacement heifers in Oklahoma is the third most in the US, after Texas and Montana- and represents a 24.6% increase in the state compared to the number of Beef Heifers we had in the 2014 report.   

The Oklahoma Calf crop is up seven percent from a year ago, at 1.78 million head- behind just Texas and California.  (many of the calves born in California are dairy calves, so Oklahoma's beef calf crop was actually the second largest in the US.)  

Overall, the Oklahoma cattle herd is the fifth largest in the US, behind Texas, Nebraska, Kansas and California.  If you subtract dairy animals, Oklahoma jumps ahead of fourth place California in over all beef cattle numbers with 4,560,000 bovines.  With our dairy cows, the total cattle herd in the state is 4.6 million head. 

One final number that jumped out at us was the number of animals in the southern plains that are on winter wheat pasture. USDA reports that 1.93 million head of cattle are grazing on small grains pasture in Kansas, Oklahoma and Texas this year- up twenty percent from last winter.

Prescribed Burn Insurance Available for Landowners

Prescribed fire is one of the most powerful and important land management practices available to agricultural producers and land stewards.


Prescribed fire helps rejuvenate native plant communities that positively impact wildlife habitat and livestock forages. However, liability is always a concern for landowners using or considering the use of prescribed fire. Liability is one of the main reasons prescribed fire is not commonly used in land management.


Knowing that prescribed fire is as important to most agricultural operations as grazing, rain and sunshine, the Oklahoma Prescribed Burn Association (OPBA), in conjunction with The Samuel Roberts Noble Foundation and The Bramlett Agency have come together to provide a solution for landowners.


For the first time, Oklahoma landowners can purchase prescribed burn insurance to protect themselves or lessees implementing prescribed fire against claims for any damage on someone else's property. "The development of the prescribed fire insurance was need-driven for landowners and producers to be able to manage their land properly," said Russell Stevens, Noble Foundation wildlife and range consultant and executive director of the OPBA. "We are working toward making this insurance available to other states as well." 

Click here to learn more about what landowners in Oklahoma must do to get an insurance policy issued and take effect.

Clint Williams Co. Bankruptcy Devastating Peanut Industry

The bankruptcy of the U.S. peanut processor Clint Williams Company could cripple the peanut industry through the southwest. The company, along with its affiliates the Texoma Peanut Company, Clint-Co Peanut Co., and the Clint Williams Co - Western Division, filed for Chapter 11 reorganization in November. At a town hall meeting Friday with U.S. Ag Secretary Tom Vilsack and Oklahoma Congressman Frank Lucas, Oklahoma Peanut Commission Executive Director Mike Kubicek voiced his concerns on how this bankruptcy is impacting a lot of peanut farmers.


"It's a massive, historical event actually because it covers peanut producers not only in Oklahoma, but Arkansas, Mississippi and Texas," Kubicek said. "FSA has never seen anything of this scale and actually we need protection from FSA because in an attempt to protect our producers they are invoking the U.S. Warehouse Act, that really wasn't designed for peanuts, and in essence they would actually be asking our producers to forfeit their marketing loans and there's not a market for peanuts right now and it would be devastating to all of our producers."

Kubicek believes that as many as eighty percent of the peanuts produced in Oklahoma this past growing season have been impacted.

I talked with Kubicek at the town hall meeting. Read or have the opportunity to listen to the full interview, by clicking here.   

Award winning broadcast journalist Jerry Bohnen has spent years learning and understanding how to cover the energy business here in the southern plains-  Click here for the Oklahoma Energy website where there is a link on the left hand column that will allow you to subscribe to his daily update of top Energy News.  

National Biodiesel Board Calls for EPA to Act on RFS

The National Biodiesel Board on Friday asked the Environmental Protection Agency to immediately establish biodiesel volumes under the Renewable Fuel Standard as it highlighted fallout from the Administration's ongoing failure to establish functioning renewable fuels policy for the second consecutive year.


Industry leaders said the EPA's recent decision to allow streamlined imports of biodiesel from Argentina under the RFS has only added new urgency to the need for stable policy.


In a letter to EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy sent Friday, former biodiesel producer and NBB Governing Board Member Ben Wootton challenged McCarthy's recent comments suggesting that the RFS delays haven't hurt renewable fuels industries. Wootton lost his Pennsylvania biodiesel plant, Keystone Biofuels, in bankruptcy last year as a result of RFS uncertainty. In his letter, he explained to McCarthy how the loss of his plant also forced him to lay off 30 employees and caused him to lose his daughters' college funds and his retirement savings.
 

Click here to read more.  

A Multi Million Dollar Rain Shows Up- Even in Dry Northwestern and Northcentral Oklahoma

The final tally on rainfall amounts from this past Saturday's slow, soaking rain that gave virtually every square mile in the state measurable precipitation, shows a range from a quarter of an inch in the western end of the Panhandle at Kenton and Boise City to over an inch of rain at four Mesonet stations in south central Oklahoma.  Radar suggests several other areas also topped the inch of rain threshold.  

How valuable will this rain be?  We do know that many areas were in very bad need of rainfall to sustain the winter wheat and canola crops before they start spring growth.  And- while this was not a rain where much pond water was added- the pastures across our state also received significant rain that has soaked in and will help immensely in the days ahead.

Here's a snapshot of  the map from the weekend-  

 We need more- but this map of BLUE is a blessing!   (By the way- you can click on the map and jump to the Mesonet site for the realtime 3 day rainfall total and see who got what.)  

By the way- in your opinion- how much was this rain worth to our state???

Drop me an email by clicking here and let me know what you think.