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.

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We talked with Chuck Lambert at the NCBA International Markets Committee meeting during one of their breaks on Friday afternoon(the link is below)- and he tells us that the South Koreans indicated they were willing to talk about changing the inspections to reflect commercial trading practices- but added we will have to wait and see if anything will come out of these meetings this go round.

We also talked about the current dealings with the Japanese and the importance of the OIE determination of BSE risk that will be out this spring in our efforts to fully reopen several markets to US beef.

Click here to listen to Ron and Chuck Lambert discuss Korean and Japanese trade discussions

The rhetoric of the Secretary leading up to the release of the proposal was very bold- but in reality as we read the details of the Commodity Title, this is really not a lot more than a tweak of the current law, if you toss out the extreme Payment Limits concept the Secretary detailed. It does offer a change in the way you figure the Countercyclical payment, now to be based on revenue, it lowers loan rates and figures them on a five year Olympic average and raises direct payments some. If you are a cotton producer, the direct payment is raised the most- and you get it from day one, while the other program crops don't see an increase in the direct payments until year three of this proposal. While some tightening of the current payment limitations may happen in 2007, it is unlikely the income test that the Administration has proposed has any more chance of success than Rex Grossman did in the Super Bowl yesterday.

Undersecretary Dorr will be in the House Chambers at the State Capitol at 12:30 pm tomorrow- will give his overview and then will be available for questions. USDA has asked me to emcee this event- and we will introduce the Undersecretary and help keep the Question and Answer session moving forward. We'll look forward to seeing several of you there.

Dr. Stephen Slinsky, the NCC’s senior economist, said, “assuming normal weather conditions, a U.S. crop between 20-21 million bales is very possible.” He adds that a high-low range for this year's crop might be 22 million bales on the high side nationally, while drought and a poor growing season over a substantial part of the cotton belt might push us down to an 18 million bale crop. NCC believes a lot of the acres coming out of cotton, especially over in the mid-south, will be going into corn here in 2007.

Here in Oklahoma, the expected decline is 13.9%, as Oklahoma producers have signaled their intention to plant 271,000 acres of cotton this year, compared to 315,000 acres in 2006. We have linked the news release from the National Cotton Council which includes the complete state by state data below.

Click here for the NCC Early Season Planting Intentions Survey.

Check with your local Extension office for details on the workshop closest to you over the next few days. We hope to get out and cover some of the activities this morning in El Reno.

The Bovine Blog is still up and will be available for several weeks for you to go back and review some of the highlights of the 2007 event. In fact, this week, we will be posting a few more interviews from industry figures that we want to share with you beyond what we will be able to offer on the airwaves of the Radio Oklahoma Network. We will call some of these to your attention as they are posted- but check back every day or so- and you'll find fresh offerings as we wrap up our wall to wall coverage of this biggest event in the life of our US beef cattle industry annually.

Click here to be taken to the Oklahoma Farm Report BOVINE Blog!

Value added crops, no-tillage strategies and water retention concepts will be featured at this evening meeting. While the deadline has passed for RSVPing to this meeting, you might give one of the following folks a call if you have interest in attending this event and have not yet reserved your spot- either Jeff Lockett in Ponca City at 580- 718-4240 or Melanie Oliver with the Osage Tribal Resources Group in Pawhuska at 918-287-5384.

During the Region IV meeting of the group, Oklahoma Farmers Union Vice President Terry Detrick of Ames offered the opinion that we need more than the current dollar, and the key to getting it is to educate cattle producers, large and small, of the benefits they have received from the dollar now paid in- and what an extra buck could do in the areas of promotion and research.

Our Beef Buzz from this past Friday featured Terry's comments and we have it linked for you below. It echoes the thoughts of others we visited with over the course of the convention- including the Vice President of another organization, the Oklahoma Farm Bureau (Bob Drake of Davis)

Click here for the Beef Buzz with Ron talking to Terry Detrick on the Beef Checkoff

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