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 just concluded Southern Plains Farm Show in Oklahoma City, 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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Everybody is talking about the need for an adequate safety net- and that has got at least the traditional farm groups all wanting to keep the main elements in place from the 2002 farm law. With current commodity prices- you could pretty well leave the Commodity Title of the 2002 Farm Law in place and that could be your 2007 farm bill. Of course, you have lots of folks wanting to change this or that- the Wheat Growers want to up the direct payment, Farm Bureau wants a revenue based countercyclical program instead of the current concept and so it goes. And, you have many groups that want to pull money away from the Commodity Title to fund Energy or Conservation or New Farmer Initiatives or whatever their pet project may be. When you have a pot of money- even if it is a smaller pot of money than five years ago- people show up and want to put their dipper in to get a cup or two or three.

The third things we have heard from several different directions is one of those things that will require money from somewhere- and that is Permanent Disaster Aid to end Ad Hoc requests that are getting harder and harder to navigate through the political waters. Tom Buis of National Farmers Union as well as Bob Young of American Farm Bureau both were expressing interest in making this a part of the 2007 farm language- the question comes back to the money- how do you fund it? I mentioned to Buis the discussion that Congressman Frank Lucas had at a couple of his recent Town Hall Meetings in which he floated the idea of taking some money from Crop Insurance and establishing a Disaster Aid program, with Crop Insurance assuming that Disaster Aid covers the catastrophic problems we might encounter. Buis says it's just one of many ideas that should be out there and then allow the ones with merit to float to the top.

One final "key" to this 2007 Farm Bill Debate is important to note- the Chairmen of the House and Senate Ag Committees both swear they will get this thing done and to the President by September. Ag Secretary Johanns expressed his support of that very aggressive timeline. He did acknowledge that is a "very ambitious" goal. In conversations with several policy wonks here in DC, it's hard to believe that this timeline can hold unless someone like Nancy Pelosi tells all concerned that she won't tolerate allowing this measure to drag into 2008- that it is an issue that Democrats (and really even the Republicans) will prefer to get done and have behind us in the upcoming national elections of 2008.

Click here for our Tuesday morning farm news from the Radio Oklahoma Network in which we explore several of these "Keys"

Beyond these two new titles, Johanns spent time with farm broadcasters talking about Japan and Korea and US beef, as well as food safety and payment limitations. On the US Beef front, Johanns says he is hopeful audits by the Japanese will proceed quickly and that we will see progress in getting away from checking every box by Japanese inspectors- he considers this a starting point to improve and open trade further for US Beef. He expressed excitement about getting one shipment of beef through the Korean inspection process- but says it's still not a market that is "commercially open" at this stage.

The Secretary had interesting comments about the Administration proposal of using the Adjusted Gross Income threshold of $200,000 as a payment limitation for commodity programs. Johanns defended that concept, saying that only 38,000 taxpayers actually receive farm program payments. He says that number could well be less than that if you are around that threshold and use averaging over a three year period that could keep a producer under the $200K level. Johanns continues to be convinced that this direction on payment limits would be the way to go- he claims $150 million in annual savings if this concept should be a part of the 2007 Farm Bill.

Click here to hear Ron with Secretary Johanns on this subject of only rich folks will be caught by Payment Limits as proposed by USDA.

Beyond Disaster aid, Coppock argues for the wheat grower position of needing a higher Direct Payment in the new farm bill- knowing full well that there are lawmakers who are looking at the direct payment part of the Commodity Title as a way to fund their various pet projects.

We also talked with Coppock about Wheat Summit II which was held about a week ago- he says that there will be four reports out from that Summit in about a week- if all agree. If there is disagreement in some areas, there will still be a "majority" report issued in the four areas to be reported on. Coppock tells us it's his view that this could be a structure where periodically the wheat industry could come together to agree on common ground to speak as a "single voice" for the wheat industry- a voice similar to what the Cotton Industry has with the Cotton Council- with the wheat industry hoping to bring some unity about without the layer or another group.

You can listen to Ron and Daren talk about these issues in detail by clicking here.

Ediger says there are two examples of types of cases that would never have seen the light of day if SB 709 had been in effect. The first example he points to are class action lawsuits brought on behalf of Mineral Rights Owners to force energy companies to honor contracts they have agreed to- things like not charging various fees that the contract spells out as not being the responsibility of the land owner. The second example that Ediger brings up is a case that he had a hand in- the Class Action case against Gold Bank that forced payment to farmers participating for illegal interest rates charged by the bank that proved to be a violation of federal law.

As we reported yesterday, it does appear that the State Chamber of Commerce is pushing lawmakers to come up with a revised tort reform measure that make bring the Governor to a point of agreement on a "do over." Governor Henry vetoed SB 507 and given the closeness of the vote in the Senate for that measure, there is zero chance of a successful override vote on that measure.

In an announcement that came at the meeting with Farm Broadcasters, Secretary Bodman says they will be taking proposals to build five to ten experimental sized cellulosic ethanol plants across the country- with the goal to test and experiment on new feedstocks and new processing methodology. Grants for these plants will total $200 million over five years.

Secretary Bodman also said good progress had been made on the naming of three new BioResearch Centers that will be positioned around the country. He indicates that over a dozen sites are applying for consideration, with announcement of the winning locations to be made this summer. We asked the Secretary during Q&A what makes him think that we can find the magic bullet and make cellulosic ethanol an economic reality- you can click below to hear what he told us.

Click here for the answer that Ron got from Secretary Bodman about how to bring home the promise of cellulosic ethanol.

Mark seems to agree with other reporters that we have heard from on Day One that as you moved away from the hardest hit areas of freeze damage, you are seeing a lot of regrowth of secondary tillers and if that wheat is given a chance, it will yield fairly well.

Mark says that he saw a lot of Powdery Mildew in the fields he observed- just a limited amount of leaf rust and yield potential as high as 60 bushels an acre as they neared Colby. Overall, we understand the average yield per acre for the first day territory was right around forty bushels per acre- about unchanged from the guesses of a year ago. It appears that many of the scouts are surprised that the Kansas crop looks as good as it does in the area covered on day one.

Earlier this week- Kansas Lawmaker Jerry Moran looked at the freeze damage before heading to Washington- here's that report.

Actual judging is tomorrow at a secret location- but the site of the banquet to honor the winners is no secret- that's at the National Cowboy and Western Heritage Center in Oklahoma City on Thursday evening. There are a lot of groups that help make this annual event possible- but two key groups that really help everything take flight include the Oklahoma Conservation Commission and the Oklahoma Association of Conservation Districts.

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. AND THIS MORNING- WE HAVE A SPECIAL GIVE AND TAKE WITH THE FORMER CHAIRMAN OF THE HOUSE AG COMMITTEE, LARRY COMBEST, ON OUR FEATURED AUDIO PAGE!

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