Howdy Neighbors!

Here's your morning farm news headlines from the Director of Farm Programming for the Radio Oklahoma Network, Ron Hays. Our email this morning is a service of Midwest Farm Shows, featuring the Tulsa Farm Show December 7-9, 2006 and the Southern Plains Farm Show in Oklahoma City April 19-21, 2007. Check out details of both of these exciting shows at the official website of Midwest Farm Shows by clicking here.

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The Discussion Meet contest is underway today- a big event for the Young Farmers and Ranchers Committee- and their first General Session happens after lunch when they will be hearing from several key speakers- including the President of the American Farm Bureau, Bob Stallman. They are also scheduled to hear this afternoon from Lt. Governor Elect Jari Askins. You can click below and we have a link set up for our conversation with Bob Stallman that will be recorded later this morning. It should be up on our web site and available to you by early afternoon.

The resolutions coming up from the county Farm Bureaus will begin to be worked on today, with those sessions led by OFB Vice President and Resolutions Committee Chairman Bob Drake- with that process to be wrapped up on Saturday afternoon. We will have extensive coverage from this event on Monday morning on our radio reports on the Radio Oklahoma Network, as well as right here on this daily E-Mail.

"South Korea has responded to our request for clarification of their beef trade restrictions. It is a positive step forward that South Korean leaders have agreed to remove silver skin from their list of prohibited items and have agreed that cartilage, breast-bone and bone chips would not be considered specified risk material. However, I am very disappointed that they have been unwilling to establish commercial tolerance levels for bone chips and cartilage. Tolerance levels have been established with many other trading partners.

I will be traveling to Seoul in coming weeks to continue the discussions with South Korea in hopes of resolving the remaining issues. I look forward to the opportunity to encourage South Korea to provide greater clarity regarding the conditions of beef trade between our countries."

A decrease in acreage combined with low yields has resulted in a short supply this year. According to projections released by the National Agricultural Statistics Service (NASS) in October, the U.S. is expected to harvest approximately 400,000 fewer acres than last year with a production decrease of almost 93 million bushels or 25 percent of last year's crop. Though Mexico remains the dominant U.S. sorghum importer, Spain has made an aggressive entrance into the market recently to fulfill annual commitments made two decades ago.

Lust said that through negotiations of the Uraguay Round of The General Agreement on Tariff and Trade (GATT), Spain is still a market player today. "Past NSP President Mabry Foreman of Felt, Okla. worked to ensure that grain sorghum had a place in the agreement. Today, producers are still benefiting from that work. They may not know the contributing factors to today's high grain prices, but producer support of NSP 20 years ago is paying big dividends today." A growing domestic ethanol market is also contributing to the spike in demand for all feed grains. Many ethanol plants are being built in the U.S. Sorghum Belt.

Nationally, the corn crop is now pegged at 10.7 billion bushels, off one percent from last month and 3% under that of 2005; soybean total production for the US in record territory at 3.2 billion bushels, up five percent above 2005 levels and the cotton crop is forecast at just over 21 million bales, up three percent from a month ago but still 11% under the 2005 crop.

The grain market looked the numbers over, and pronounced the numbers bearish, as Chicago corn dropped as much as 17 to 18 cents a bushel before the losses were trimmed before the final bell and the nearby December have been given a seven cent haircut. The soybeans also were lower on the day, down eight and three quarters of a cent on the nearby contract- and Kansas City and Chicago wheat market traders decided there was not much more up for now in corn- and massive selloff ensued. K.C. wheat ended down sixteen to eighteen cents per bushel on the day-with local elevators dropping their bids 13 to 17 cents per bushel.

Click here for the November crop production summary from Oklahoma's NASS office

Mandatory animal ID, COOL, Packer Ownership and more will likely be subjects rising to the top in the days to come. Truitt laments the loss of cattle rancher Richard Pombo in California, as he says that million of dollars of money poured into that district from environmental activist groups- all wanting Pombo OUT- and they got the job done.

You can hear how Truitt sizes things up in both the House and Senate if you take a listen to today's Beef Buzz from the Radio Oklahoma Network. We have a link for you to listen below.

Click here for today's Beef Buzz with Ron and Jay Truitt of NCBA.

There is a rather interesting Beef Quality Summit planned for this coming week in Oklahoma City as well. Some of the leading beef industry corporations will be represented, including Smithfield and Cargill, as well as leading University types like Dr. Brad Morgan of OSU and Dr. Gary Smith of Colorado State.

On Wednesday, a Memorial is planned to celebrate the life of Justin Whitefield, Executive Director of the Oklahoma Youth Expo and a part of the Legal team at the Oklahoma Farm Bureau. That Memorial service is planned at 11 am Wednesday at the National Cowboy Hall of Fame in Oklahoma City- a reception for folks to visit will begin at 10 am that morning. A Memorial Fund has been set up- and you can contact the Bank of Western Oklahoma for more information or to contribute- that number is 580-225-3434.

We will be heading for Kansas City on Wednesday for our annual National Association of Farm Broadcasters meeting- and it will include an encounter right out of the box with Secretary of Agriculture Mike Johanns midday on Wednesday.

KGWA can be heard throughout most of north central down into central Oklahoma- and we invite you to check them out on the AM dial at 960.

Click here to see the full schedule of the reports carried weekdays by KGWA AM960 radio.

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