Leffler Says Cattle on Feed Numbers Bearish News to Futures Market

The U.S. has the largest number of cattle on feed since the start of the year. The U.S. Department of Agriculture released the latest cattle on feed numbers Friday estimating 10.8 million head, as of April first. Tom Leffler of Leffler Commodities said this report looks to be a market mover when the futures market reopens Monday morning.


"This is the largest on feed for 2015 and the third smallest April on feed number of the past ten years," Leffler said.


The inventory included 7.46 million steers and steer calves, up 5 percent from the previous year. This group accounted for 69 percent of the total inventory. Heifers and heifer calves accounted for 3.34 million head, down 10 percent from 2014. Leffler said Nebraska was up two percent, Kansas was up one percent and Texas down one percent versus a year ago.


Placements in feedlots during March totaled 1.81 million, slightly above 2014. Net placements were 1.74 million head. Leffler said this is where we are going to see a bit of negativeness from the cattle on feed report.


"This is the largest placement number of the past five months, it is also the fifth lowest March placement of the past ten years," Leffler said.


"This leads to the question, are we backing up some heavy cattle in our feedyard and we're not maybe as current as we should be," Leffler said. 

Radio Oklahoma Network's Leslie Smith interviewed Leffler after the report came out Friday afternoon. Leffler also addresses the latest cold storage report from USDA.  Click to tap here to listen to the full interview.  

Recent Rains Help the 2015 Wheat Crop- and the Attitudes of Wheat Growers- Jeff Edwards

The 2015 Oklahoma Hard Red Winter Wheat Crop has responded to recent rain as well as the overcast, cooler days- and Dr. Jeff Edwards, OSU Extension Small Grains Specialist, says "It's amazing what a little bit of rain will do for the wheat as well as the growers' attitudes."

Edwards believes some of the better wheat in the state in 2015 may be produced in south central and parts of southwestern Oklahoma. Timely rains from Chickasha to Apache to Walters has the crop in those locations looking very good. All three of these communities had wheat field tours this past week- conducted by Dr. Edwards and other members of the OSU Wheat Improvement Team.


The Extension Specialist is more concerned about the central(I-40 and north), north central and north western parts of the state- saying drought had already done significant damage to the 2015 crop- and that while the rains of this month will help salvage some productive capacity of the crop- they will not fully restore most wheat fields in these areas before the combines roll at the end of May and the first half of the month of June.


Dr. Edwards is also concerned about a likely explosion of strip rust across much of the wheat belt in Oklahoma this growing season. He believes that the crop in southwestern Oklahoma is far enough along that the crop can finish below much damage will result- but he is less convinced that will be the case points north. 

Our full interview with Dr. Edwards regarding the 2015 Oklahoma Wheat Crop is available here- we talked with Jeff at this past Friday's Chickasha Wheat Field Day in Grady County.

TPA Bill Emerges From House, Senate Committees

Agricultural groups Friday applauded members of the House Ways and Means Committee who voted to advance the Bipartisan Congressional Trade Priorities and Accountability Act of 2015 out of committee Thursday evening and urged Congress to quickly pass the bill.  TPA passed by a bi-partisan vote of 25 to 13.

National Cattlemen's Beef Association President and Chugwater, Wyo. cattleman Philip Ellis issued the following statement upon passage:  "We appreciate the House Ways and Means Committee's efforts to pass this legislation following Senate passage last evening. As we have repeatedly stated, trade is critical to the success and future profitability of our industry and TPA is critical to negotiating future free trade agreements. Cattlemen urge swift passage of this legislation by the full House and Senate." 

The National Corn Growers Association Friday applauded the effort.  In a statement, NCGA president Chip Bowling, a farmer from Newburg, Maryland said, "Trade Promotion Authority will help the U.S. to reach major international trade agreements that support American farmers, businesses, and rural communities. It's time to act. We urge the Senate and House to bring this legislation to a floor vote as soon as possible." 

With passage by the House Ways and Means Committee and the Senate Finance Committee that would grant trade promotion authority to President Barack Obama, the American Soybean Association (ASA) is calling on both chambers to pass the bill and give the administration what it needs to forge ahead with key trade agreements around the globe.


"Agreements like the Trans-Pacific Partnership and others that expand market access are of vast importance to American soybean farmers as we look to maintain our position at the vanguard of the world's agricultural trade, however we can't conclude agreements without trade promotion authority. That's always been step one," said Wade Cowan, ASA president and a soybean farmer from Brownfield, Texas.
 

NCBA and Congress Await WTO Final Ruling for COOL Before Repeal Begins

During the 2014 Farm Bill debate, Texas Congressman Randy Neugebauer wanted to basically eliminate Country of Origin Labeling (COOL) for fresh meats. But Senate Democrats involved in the process, especially Senator Debbie Stabenow, former Senate Agriculture Committee Chairwoman, refused to allow Country of Origin Labeling to be touched during the 2014 Farm Bill negotiations. Democrats wanted to wait on the World Trade Organization (WTO) for their final ruling on whether COOL is trade distorting or not.   National Cattlemen's Beef Association Vice President of Government Affairs Colin Woodall said that moment is about to arrive.


"We know that the WTO is going to be issuing their next decision on the Canadian and Mexican lawsuit here probably in about two or three weeks," Woodall said. "We just need to see how the Administration will handle that and whether they will truly back off and let Congress fix this."


Assuming the WTO does issue a final ruling calling the COOL legislation trade distorting, Woodall said he believes Congress will step up and fix it.


I featured Woodall on the Beef Buzz. Click or tap here to have the opportunity to hear about the outlook for COOL.  

Go All Out- Oklahoma FFA Secretary Gatlin Squires Finds True Beauty of FFA

Some individuals are born to wear the blue jacket. In being the son and grandson of agricultural education teachers, Gatlin Squires knew at a young age that he would also wear the blue FFA coat one day.


"So, growing up FFA was basically a way of life for me," Squires said. "It was instilled in me at a very early age."


As an eighth grader, he joined the organization in Noble. In his sophomore year, he moved to Kingfisher where he joined the FFA organization. He began to participate in many career development events where he learned to speak extemporaneously, evaluate livestock as well as run a meeting with proper parliamentary procedure. As he began to grow within the jacket, grow within the organization and grow older, he realized how much more FFA was than what he initially thought and began to see the true beauty of the organization.


"The true beauty of FFA and the organization honestly for me is the family sense," said. "Obviously, I grew up in a FFA family where it was a passion that was shared by everybody in my family."


Through his FFA experience, he has found while members come from all different backgrounds, everyone shares this common thread of passion and enthusiasm for the FFA organization.

As the Oklahoma FFA Secretary, Squires is getting ready for the 2015 Oklahoma State FFA Convention in Oklahoma City.  Squires is being featured in April and May as one of the voices in an Oklahoma FFA radio campaign to raise awareness for the young men and ladies who wear the Blue and Gold jacket in the state of Oklahoma. The Campaign is being sponsored by SandRidge Energy, the Power of Us. Click here to learn more about the SandRidge story.


Once again in 2015, the Radio Oklahoma Ag Network and Oklahoma Farm Report.com will be offering extensive coverage of the 2015 State FFA Convention in downtown Oklahoma City. The Theme of the 2015 Convention is "Go All Out" and details about the many aspects of the 2015 Convention can be accessed by clicking here. 

You can hear the full conversation that I had with Gatlin Squires by clicking or tapping 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 to subscribe to his daily update of top Energy News.

Senators to USDA- Open Up Enrollment and Add Acres to CRP This Year

Oklahoma's Senior Senator, Jim Inhofe, was among a bipartisan group of senators calling on the Department of Agriculture to increase signup efforts in the Conservation Reserve Program (CRP) to keep enrollment near acreage caps established in the 2014 farm bill.


CRP is a Farm Service Agency (FSA) program created in 1985 that gives farmers a yearly payment - usually as part of 10-15 year contracts - if they agree to take certain environmentally sensitive land from production. Enrollment in the program peaked at 37 million acres in 2007, but has dropped to its current enrollment of 24.29 million acres.


The nationwide CRP acreage cap for fiscal year 2015 is 26 million acres, a figure established in the 2014 farm bill. More than 1.9 million acres enrolled in CRP contracts expire on Sept. 30, the end of FY 2015, so unless a large number of acres are enrolled by then, the lawmakers say enrollment may be nearly 3.6 million acres under the enrolled acreage cap at the end of this fiscal year.

 

Click here to read more about the outlook for acres enrolled in CRP for 2015.  

This N That- Right to Farm, Rain and FooDS Survey Turns Two Years Old

We have been told that the House Leadership has accepted the Senate amendments that altered HJR 1012- the Right to Farm Legislation- and now will vote on the measure as the Senate amended it this week.  A floor vote on RIght to Farm could happen Tuesday or Wednesday.

We would expect the second House floor vote to be similar to what was seen a few weeks ago when 90 House members voted in favor of Right to Farm.  If that is the case- the Resolution will have been adopted- and that will mean that the Oklahoma Attorney General will oversee the writing of what will show up on the ballot in November 2016.  

There will be lots of organizing by the ag groups within the state in the weeks ahead as they line up to battle HSUS, the Sierra Club and others who have expressed opposition to Right to Farm.  

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Rainfall has covered the entire state- with only a couple of Mesonet stations reporting no rainfall over the last 24 hours- as of Monday morning here at 5:30 AM.  The largest rainfall amounts that have been officially recorded are 2.01 inches in Erick and 1.92 inches of rainfall at Fort Cobb.  

Rainfall is expected over a lot of the state through the day today and into tonight and tomorrow morning. The rainfall totals are expected the pile up- making this system another significant drought denting rainfall event.  

Click here for the realtime Mesonet Rainfall totals- this is the for the 2 day totals which will reflect everything that fell on Sunday forward. 

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Dr. Jayson Lusk has headed up an effort to track the attitudes of consumers over the last two years- and his FooDS survey has just celebrated its two year birthday. 

The cornerstone of the survey is what Dr. Lusk has called the "Willingness-to-pay" (WTP) for two beef, chicken and pork products, in addition to two non-meat items, has been calculated each month since the beginning of FooDS. The WTP for each product in each month is reported as an index value set relative to May 2013- the price in May 2013 being called the baseline or a score of 100. For example, the WTP index for steak in April 2015 was 126.44, meaning WTP in April 2015 was (126.44 - 100 = 26.44) 26.44% higher than in May 2013. WTP for steak and chicken breast were at their highest in April 2015. The Willingness to pay for beef, pork, and chicken have generally been higher this year compared to last. 

We have details of the two year summary on our website- click here to take a look!