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~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Oklahoma's latest farm and ranch news
Your Update from Ron Hays of RON for Friday January 26,
2007! A
service of Midwest Farm Shows
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
-- Eastern Oklahoma Storm Update with Kent Barnes
-- An Asian Slapdown- Japan doesn't want to talk about it!
-- A Michael Dicks Perspective on House Ag Committee
Reorganization.
-- OSU RAMPs up with Wheat Nutrition meetings starting next
week.
-- USDA's Rural Development to have a seat at the Oklahoma Renewable
Energy Council table.
-- CBO has released their Budget Baseline- and it's not pretty for
agriculture.
-- Next few days: Farm Bureau YF&R gathering, No-Till and Cattle
Confab!
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 Southern Plains Farm Show in Oklahoma City April 19-21, 2007, as well as the Tulsa Farm Show held each December. Check out details of both of these exciting shows at the official website of Midwest Farm Shows by clicking here. If you have received this by someone forwarding it to you, you are welcome to subscribe and get this weekday update sent to you directly by clicking here. | |
Eastern Oklahoma Storm Update with Kent Barnes ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Kent is the
northeast Oklahoma Extension Livestock Specialist in the OSU Extension
system- and we caught up with Kent yesterday in Enid at the Stocker
Management Workshop that was being held. (by the way- it was a great
program and excellent attendance- over a hundred were sitting in the room
listening to the speakers by mid morning.) Kent tells us that there are
trees down everywhere, power is still slowly going back on along rural
roads and hay supplies are critical.
The bright spot of this storm and the other rain events we have had in recent weeks has been the refilling of our ponds- Barnes confirms what we have heard from southeastern Oklahoma and south central areas as well- ponds in most cases are full again- or least well off of their lows from the fall. We have linked our conversation with Kent below if you want to check out his assessment of the situation. He fears the worse impact of this storm and the drought is still to come in poor rebreeding rates for many cow herds where the body score of those animals have simply been allowed to go too low. | |
An Asian Slapdown- Japan doesn't want to talk about it! ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ The Japanese
market was once worth $1.4 billion to the U.S. beef industry- now it's
worth a few million and it will be difficult to get that moving higher
quickly with the current answers that the U.S. government is getting from
Japan- We Don't Want to Talk About It!
An official with their Ag Ministry has issued a statement saying that they are not at a stage to accept consultations toward reviewing the trade conditions for now. He adds it is "too early" to enter talks with our negotiators as Japan's verification of U.S. Beef exporting conditions is not yet completed. No indication as to when that verification would be complete. USDA claims that the Japanese had agreed to a timetable to start talking about moving the age limitation up from 21 months of age to the more widely accepted level of safety internationally of 30 months of age for which they would accept beef from cattle that were younger than without testing for BSE. That timetable was supposedly about six months after the market had been open and was operating normally. That time has come and the Japanese are back to their usual overly cautious and protectionist stance- We Don't Want to Talk About It. | |
A Michael Dicks Perspective on House Ag Committee Reorganization. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ From time to
time, OSU Ag Policy expert Dr. Michael Dicks responds to one of our email
reports and gives us his two cents worth- and that information is almost
always very interesting. He responded to our story from earlier this week
that the push for more "balance" among commodities will apparently have
the specialty crops pushing for a share of Title One Commodity funds.
Dr. Dicks says "Looks like the fruits and veggie people have won a huge battle to get a seat at the table. The House Ag Committee has a new committee on horticulture and organic agriculture with a Californian as chairman and Texan as Ranking member. This puts the Fruit and Vegetable industry on equal footing with conservation, livestock and commodities. And, given that Ag Committee Chairman Collin Peterson believes that the subcommittees should write the farm bill- this bill to the Fruit and Vegetable industry may be vary much like the Food Security Act of 1985 was to the Conservation/Environmental groups." And,of course that is the point where conservation became a big ticket item that has grown and stimulated more demand for the dollars available in working lands programs like EQIP. | |
OSU RAMPs up with Wheat Nutrition meetings starting next week. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Many Oklahoma
crop producers have heard of Nitrogen Rich Strips and hand held
GreenSeekerTM. These are used to determine appropriate nitrogen topdress
rates for wheat. In an effort to expose farmers to this technology, OSU
Cooperative Extension put ramped nitrogen strips on almost 600 farmers’
fields in the fall of 2006 and provided many county Extension Offices with
hand held sensors. The purpose of these workshops is to inform producers
about this program and demonstrate sensor based nitrogen management
principles.
There are five regional meetings to show off this technology and show
how matching your overall field to the correct strip can help you
precisely know the nitrogen levels your wheat fields need. Those meeting
locations include: Check with your local ag extension agent to get details on the meeting closest to you. Brad Tipton in Canadian County sent me a copy of his flier on the program- and he is asking folks to RSVP for their February 5th meeting in his county by next Friday, February 2nd.He adds that the new Co-Chairman of the Senate Ag Committee, Ron Justice, plans to stop by and offer a word of greeting to help kick off the meeting. To RSVP for the Canadian County workshop, call Brad Tipton at 405-262-0155 by next Friday. | |
USDA's Rural Development to have a seat at the Oklahoma Renewable Energy Council table. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Jody Harris,
Community Programs Specialist for United States Department of Agriculture
(USDA) Rural Development, has been named to the Oklahoma Renewable Energy
Council (OREC). Organized out of the Oklahoma Wind Power Initiative, the
OREC is recognized as the central voice for Oklahoma’s renewable energy
advocates. The broad coalition of individuals, companies, organizations,
and agencies is incorporated in Oklahoma as a 501C3 not-for-profit
corporation. The Council works to develop Oklahoma’s bountiful renewable
energy resources.
USDA Rural Development’s participation through Harris will contribute to the Council’s dedication to serve Oklahoma by helping the state to develop its renewable resources to spur economic development, improve the environment, and diversify the energy supply portfolio and long term energy security. “Jody Harris’ membership on this Council and the Administration’s commitment to advancing renewable energy initiatives through Rural Development will prove highly beneficial to rural Oklahoma,” said Brent Kisling, state director for Rural Development in Oklahoma. “We are looking forward to celebrating many achievements resulting from this partnership.” | |
CBO has released their Budget Baseline- and it's not pretty for agriculture. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ It's a little
tough to sort out how much damage has been done to the pot of money that
agriculture will have available to draw from- but it may be something like
$30 billion less that may be available to crafters of the next farm bill
compared to the 2002 drafters. The reason is that with higher grain prices
this year, the outlays from the federal farm safety net is down- and
that's a good thing as farmers have gotten more of their income from the
market. The problem is that if you don't spend budget baseline money, the
baseline for future years will skew lower and the amount of money
allocated to those safety net programs becomes dramatically lower.
A further wrinkle in all of this is that the Democrats have returned to the so called Paygo rules, which means that once you have a budget baseline number for existing programs, you can't spend more money than that unless you take it from another program or you raise revenue. If the pot for the commodity title of the farm law is dramatically reduced- that makes the battle between the various factions that want money for their favorite program ever tougher. The real number that the House and Senate Ag Committees will have to allocate to all the existing programs and possible new initiatives will come from the Budget Committee- and that number should become known by sometime in March. The CBO number issued this week is definitely well under what everyone involved will be asking for the writing of the 2007 farm law. | |
Next few days: Farm Bureau YF&R gathering, No-Till and Cattle Confab! ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Starting later
today, the Oklahoma Farm Bureau Young Farmers and Ranchers will be
gathering on the north side of Oklahoma City for their winter conference.
They will have sessions on politics as well as have a chance to see the
inner workings of the Oklahoma National Stockyards. Their meeting runs
through Sunday.
This coming Tuesday and Wednesday, what we have called the Super Bowl of No-Till information will be happening in Salina, Kansas as the No-Tll on the Plains Conference will be happening. If you want last minute information on their sessions, go to their web site by clicking here! Finally, we will be heading for Nashville and coverage of the Cattle Industry Convention and Trade Show that really cranks up on Wednesday early and goes to Saturday. We understand that they will have that cigar chomping farm policy guru himself, Dr. Barry Flinchbaugh from Kansas State University scheduled to be a part of their Cattlemen's College and offer perspectives on what he sees in the developing farm policy debate that may have impact on the cattle business. Click below for more details on their meeting coming next week. Click here for last minute details of the Cattle Industry Convention and Trade Show. | |
Our thanks to Midwest Farm Shows for their support of our daily Farm News Update. Go to their website at the link at the top of today's email for more information on either the Tulsa Farm Show or the Southern Plains Farm Show. 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. | |
God Bless! You can reach us at the following: ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
email: ron@oklahomafarmreport.com
phone: 405-473-6144
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