Noble Foundation Part of Collaboration to Advance Land Stewardship

Three agricultural organizations officially formed a collaboration that will benefit private land owners across the United States. The Samuel Roberts Noble Foundation, based out of Ardmore, Oklahoma, Texas A&M University's Institute of Renewable Natural Resources (IRNR), and the East Wildlife Foundation, have signed a memorandum of understanding that formed the Center for Private Land Stewardship (CPLS). The signing took place Tuesday, February 3, at the launch of the Cattle Industry Convention in San Antonio Texas. I caught up with Noble Foundation Center for Land Stewardship Manager Chad Ellis to talk about this effort. 


Ellis said the Center for Private Land Stewardship is a collaboration of like-minded organizations that aims to focus on land stewardship and the importance of stewardship.   The group aims to help promote what private landowners do and how the public benefits from clean water, clean air, wildlife habitat and open space. The group also wants to empower land managers and help them with these management techniques. Ellis said there will be a lot of educational outreach, along with the development of new tools to help private land owner's make decisions and support the private landowner's interests.


Working with the Noble Foundation is Texas A & M's Agri-Life Institute of Renewable Natural Resources. Associate Director Brian Hays said there is a lot of opportunity to do some good things on behalf of landowners across the country.


"Individually we are working on these and promoting land stewardship and the importance of land stewardship and together we can work together to make that voice louder and be heard over a larger area and the partnership will allow us to do that," Hays said.


One of the primary missions of the partnership will be communicating the important role land owners have. In a state like Texas that has become more urban, Hays said they will aim to show the stewardship landowners provide for public benefit. The group will also study the trends across the country with further fragmentation of land into smaller parcels. Hays said they will work with and educate new owners about land stewardship and why it should be sustained. 

To read more about this new collaboration and have the opportunity to listen to the full feature, click or tap here.

Producing 'Enough' Beef for Growing World Population

Feeding a growing world population is among of the top concerns at the Cattle Industry Convention in San Antonio. The annual gathering has cattlemen thinking about how the beef industry will be feeding more people with less resources in the decades to come. One company that has devoted a lot of resources in consideration of how we accomplish this task is Elanco and their parent company- Eli Lily. Here in San Antonio- I had the opportunity to sit down with Dr. Gary Vogel of Elanco Animal Health to discuss what has been done to lay the groundwork to attack this goal in the years ahead.   


Elanco has launched their "Enough Movement" - the idea of producing enough beef to help feed the world population of 9 billion by the year 2050. He said it as equally as important to realize that three billion people from second and third world countries will be moving into the middle class in the future. As a result Elanco is expecting a 60 percent increase in demand for meat, milk and eggs. In the beef production analysis, an extra 43 percent more beef will need to be produced to take care of the world demand for beef.


Meeting this goal will require greater efficiency through innovation, allowing cattlemen to produce more beef with fewer resources. In talking about efficiency in the U.S., Vogel said it takes about two years to get an animal to harvest and it takes about 13 pounds of feed to make a pound a beef. In evaluating a less intensive system, such as those used in second and third world countries or in areas that use a more grazing approach, it takes about five years to get that animal to the same end point and it takes about 26 pounds of feed to produce that same pound of beef. In looking at the future, he said it will all come down to becoming more efficient.     


"As we look at the world population and the number of cattle that we are going to have to have, we are going to need an extra 710 million cattle produced around the world to meet the need for beef in the year 2050," Vogel said.


This can be accomplished a couple of different ways.  Read or have the opportunity to listen to my full interview with Vogel on how the beef industry will produce more beef for the growing world population, by clicking here.  

From San Antonio- We Present Blach, Seng and Douglas

Lots of themes can be pursued when you are at a meeting like the annual Cattle Industry Convention- and here in San Antonio this week- we have heard from the best minds in the industry on a variety of topics.

We have posted three feature presentations/interviews in the Podcast section of our website- OklahomaFarmReport.Com.  

Two of those podcasts now up in the Listen to RON section of our website are presentations from the Cattlefax Session help Thursday morning.

Leading off the Cattlefax session at each of the Cattle Industry meetings for the last 38 years has been Dr. Art Douglas talking weather.

2015 marks the 39th year that Dr. Douglas has stood on the stage and talked spring and summer weather for the country- and Dr. Douglas offered, in addition to his thoughts on El Nino for the short term, a long term forecast for the next fifteen years or so was served up by Art Douglas. 

Douglas sees the Pacific warming and the Atlantic cooling- and that could change everything about our weather for the next several years- click here to learn more about his weather flip ideas.

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Also from the Cattlefax seminar- Randy Blach has been playing cleanup in the annual Outlook Session- and this year was no different.

Blach says that 12014 was a remarkable year- one for the record books- but that 2015 will be a more difficult twelve month period.

He steps back and offers his take on where the industry is- and where the industry is going- listen to it by clicking or tapping here.

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Also on Thursday- we had the chance to sit down with talk with long time friend Phil Seng, the President and CEO of the US Meat Export Federation- looking at the remarkable year 2014 was for Beef Exports.  Seng told us that the numbers are just out- and show $7.1 billion in beef exports for this past calendar year.

Learn more from this exclusive conversation that we had with Seng by clicking here. 

Anderson Analyzes Bounce in Wheat Prices

Wheat prices made a nice bounce this past week after several weeks of lower futures prices. On this weekend's edition of SUNUP, host Lyndall Stout interviews Oklahoma State University Crop Marketing Specialist Kim Anderson about the rally. He said a big cause of the movement was the funds getting out of short positions and buying their way out, which created some good movement in the market. He said Russia also reported they put in a 15 percent tax on their exported wheat, there was also reports of slightly lower stocks around the world and last week's U.S. exports were relatively high for wheat. He said all of those factors caused prices to move higher in bringing buyers into the market. 


"I think the funds are biggest driver going in the market right now, " Anderson said.


Anderson is also preparing for wheat harvest to begin in India, Pakistan and North Africa starting in March and April. The next exportable wheat harvest will be in the U.S. later on this spring.


In looking at the price outlook, Anderson said the July Kansas City wheat contract is right at $5.70 resistance level. He believes if the price can move through $5.70, then it's next target is $5.85. If the price gets through $5.85, then its possible the price will get to $6.10. Right now the floor of the market is at $5.33. Anderson said if prices this next week don't break through $5.70, prices could drop lower and test $5.33 level.   

To read more about harvest prices or to listen to the full interview, click here.  You can also find the full lineup for this weekend's SUNUP TV program.  

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 Jerry's website where there is a link on the Left Hand Column where you can subscribe to his daily update of top Energy News.

CME Group to Close Most Open Outcry Futures Trading in Chicago and New York

As open outcry futures trading has fallen to just one percent of the company's total futures volume, CME Group announced Thursday it will close most of its futures trading pits in Chicago and New York by July 2, 2015. The floor-based S&P 500 futures market, which continues to provide an important venue for trading the underlying futures contract for the open outcry S&P 500 options on futures contract, will remain open on CME Group's Chicago trading floor.


Options on futures contracts, which continue to trade actively on both the floor and the screen, will remain open on both trading floors except for the DJIA ($10) and NASDAQ-100 open outcry equity index options markets which are designed to deliver into floor-based futures contracts.


With the exception of the S&P 500 futures and options on futures pits which will remain open, equity index futures pits and the DJIA ($10) and NASDAQ-100 options pits will close following the expiration of the June 2015 contract on June 19, 2015. All other futures pits will close on July 2. In addition, in Chicago, all options pits will be located on a single floor in the company's Financial Room by September. 
 

To read more from the CME Group, click here.  

This N That- ANCW, Messener Sale Saturday and AFR

Word came to us last night that the American National Cattlewomen have approved the Memorandum of Understanding that has come from the Beef Checkoff Working Group.  They did so at their General Membership meeting yesterday afternoon. 

The NCBA will vote on the MOU Saturday morning as the Cattle Industry Convention comes to an end.

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It's the oldest production sale in the state of Oklahoma- we are talking about the Messner Production Bull Sale happening tomorrow at the ranch near Slapout, Oklahoma. 

The Messners will be selling 150 service age Hereford and Angus bulls, as well as 50 bred Angus and Hereford heifers.

For more information- call Milt Messner at 580-273-9494 or Van Messner at 580-552-1555. More details are available here- including a link over to their sale catalog.

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We are just a week away from the 2015 annual convention of the American Farmers and Ranchers/Oklahoma Farmers Union.  They have an excellent program lined up- click here to take a look at what they have planned for those in attendance at the Embassy Suites on the north side of Norman off I-35.