From: Ron Hays [ron@oklahomafarmreport.com]
Sent: Friday, May 25, 2007 06:39
To: ron@oklahomafarmreport.com
Subject: Oklahoma's Farm News Update
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Oklahoma's latest farm and ranch news
Your Update from Ron Hays of RON for Friday May 25, 2007!
A service of Midwest Farm Shows
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-- Beef Up the Blood Supply with the Oklahoma Beef Council!
-- It's in there! Ag Disaster Aid Package a part of the War Supplemental.
-- Oklahoma Wheat Commission offers three nominees for District Two Commission Seat.
-- State Senate Declares Victory and Heads Home- House should be done by noon today.
-- Chairman Peterson says he has the green light on additional monies for writing 2007 Farm Bill
-- Rain moves through- Combines continue to wait.
-- No Email Service on Monday for Memorial Day!
-- Getting the Japanese to come to grips with accepting cattle older than 20 months vital to our beef trade with our former number one customer!

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.

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.


Beef Up the Blood Supply with the Oklahoma Beef Council!
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It is a major promotion for beef producers as the Oklahoma Beef Council will be cooking up chicken fried steak sandwiches, courtesy of Advance Foods of Enid, at eleven Oklahoma Blood Institute locations around the state midday today.

It's the grand finale for May Beef Month in the state- and an excellent kickoff for the Memorial Day Holiday weekend- which traditionally comes in as one of the most important beef grilling weekends of the entire year!

The Beef Council is partnering with several folks to make this event a reality- and we have linked a special page that tells you more about it- and if you are near one of the donor sites- why not offer up a little blood, get lunch and even get the t-shirt to brag about it!

Click here for more on the Oklahoma Beef Council's Beefing up the Blood Supply Drive 2007!


It's in there! Ag Disaster Aid Package a part of the War Supplemental.
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The negotiations are done and the Democratic Leadership delivered on a promise made back at the National Farmers Union Convention in March by Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, who told that group's opening banquet that she would make sure that ag disaster aid would be included in the Iraqi war supplemental.

Agricultural interests repeatedly said this was vital because the Bush Administration said they would not agree to an ag disaster aid package unless it was offset- in other words, money was found from existing measures to pay for it. The Administration several times during this process said there was ample safety net for producers coming from a combination of the 2002 Farm Bill and Crop Insurance that this aid was not needed. A large coalition of agricultural groups disagreed- saying it was vital to get some help out to both farmers and ranchers for a variety of natural disasters over the last three years.

"I appreciate the House Leadership for remaining steadfast in their support for this assistance, which will help our rural communities recover from weather-related disasters that have damaged local economies over the past few years," said Agriculture Committee Chairman Collin Peterson. "This Congress has delivered a fiscally responsible package that meets the most pressing needs for assistance in agriculture and rural communities." The agriculture disaster assistance package includes assistance for farmers who lost 35% or more of their crop in 2005, 2006 or 2007 and for livestock producers in counties that experienced USDA designated natural disasters during that time. Producers can apply for a disaster payment for only one of those three years, and for the first time, only farmers who had insured their crop through crop insurance or the Non-Insured Assistance Program are eligible for payments.

On the Senate side, one of those who was very unhappy that the domestic money was hiding behind the military appropriations was Senator Tom Coburn, one of 14 Senators who voted against the package. In a statement offered by the Senator's office, "I believe it is immoral for Congress to use our troops as political cover for new spending that has nothing to do with our military needs," Dr. Coburn said. "Members of Congress are expecting everyone in America to sacrifice but us. We are asking our soldiers to risk their lives every day in defense of our freedom. By borrowing money to pay for special interest projects and other unrelated items in this bill, we are asking the next generation to sacrifice. When will it be our turn to sacrifice? When will it be time for members of Congress to say no to special interest constituencies and our own short-term desire to get re-elected?"


Oklahoma Wheat Commission offers three nominees for District Two Commission Seat.
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As required by law, the Oklahoma Wheat Commission held a public election yesterday to come up with three nominees whose names will go to the Governor- who will select one of those names to sit on the Oklahoma Wheat Commission in the seat currently held by Tom Stephens of Guymon, who has served as Chairman this past year.

Stephens was one of three who was nominated to sit in that seat for another five years. The other nominees were Panhandle farmers Leon Richards and Clark Thayer. District Two is made up of seven counties from Woods and Woodward Counties westward to the end of the Panhandle.

The Wheat Commission is also waiting on word of who the Governor will choose to sit on the panel from the Fourth District, a seat that is vacant because of the death of Paul Jackson of Apache.


State Senate Declares Victory and Heads Home- House should be done by noon today.
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The final hours of the 2007 Oklahoma Legislature have been very busy, had at least a little bit of drama and is actually not going to the very last minute. We will be sorting out several issues and have a full report for you on Tuesday morning in this Email from a rural perspective.

We can tell you about three victories and one setback that has come together here this week. Senate Bill 95, the so called "trespass" bill that was vetoed by the Governor earlier this week, was not resurrected under a different bill number as had been discussed. The bill's Senate author found himself in the center of the Commuinity College funding dispute- and SB95 was left behind. No veto override was attempted because it would have taken a 75% super majority to override the Governor Henry block due to the "emergency" designation on the bill. It is expected that supporters- which included a whole host of ag groups- will make another run at this bill in early 2008.

Three measures that have been passed and now await the Governor's signature include HB1490, the measure that will codify into state law the court ruling in a lawsuit brought by the city of Tulsa against poultry industry interests in the Eucha-Spavinaw watershed. Ag interests can claim a big win here in that this measure is confined to this lawssuit- and has not been expanded to place further burdens on landowners in other watersheds around the state. SB136 passed, minus the language on Eminent Domain- another land owner victory- and finally HB1916 got approved, a measure that deals with underground storage tanks and was sought by farm groups and agribusiness in order to offer some protections for small Coops and others with underground storage tanks. We will talk about the money issues from this 2007 session in our Tuesday morning report.


Chairman Peterson says he has the green light on additional monies for writing 2007 Farm Bill
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The Chairman of the House Ag Committee, Colin Peterson of Minnesota, told reporters yesterday morning that he has had a meeting with Speaker Nancy Pelosi and other House Democratic leaders, laid out his case and he has been given the okay to draft the Committee's Farm Bill proposal with the $20 billion dollars worth of extra budget authority available.

Peterson says none of that will be used in the Commodity Title, but rather in Conservation, Energy, Research and other titles of the complex piece of legislation. He says that it was his fault that the Conservation, Credit, Research and Energy subcommittee was so tight on funds earlier this week as he had not yet had the meeting with Speaker Pelosi at that point- and was not sure about the availability of those dollars.

We have the audio from the Colin Peterson news conference linked below on this subject for you to take a listen to- the questioner is Roger Bernard, longtime friend of ours who works for ProFarmer.

Click here to listen to Chairman Colin Peterson on extra monies for 2007 farm bill.


Rain moves through- Combines continue to wait.
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Very little has been done about harvesting the 2007 Oklahoma wheat crop with the rain showers that have rolled through included showers in those southwestern counties where the wheat is fully ripe and will be harvested as soon as we get dry enough.

The Mesonet shows that more than an inch of rain fell in both Tillman and Cotton Counties yesterday- and close to an inch and a half of precipitation falling in Hobart. Those areas had smaller amounts of rain that have slowed the process earlier in the week as well.

Unsettled weather continues this holiday weekend- so it is very uncertain as to when we might see harvest finally get fully cranked up. We have several excellent weather links on our "weather" page at WWW.OklahomaFarmReport.Com. We have that link for you below- so go there and you can choose from the Oklahoma Mesonet, the National Weather Service and the two premiere private weather sites in the state, the News9 weather site featuring Gary England's weather updates and the News on 6 out of Tulsa, an excellent site with lots of weather information compiled by Travis Meyer and his team of weather gurus.

Click here for the OklahomaFarmReport weather link page.


No Email Service on Monday for Memorial Day!
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We will be taking this coming Monday off from our regular email service- and we will also be off on holiday on the radio as well across the state on the Radio Oklahoma Network.

We hope that you will be able to get a little time away from the chores- unless it dries up enough to roll the combine into the wheat fields- then I wish you lower humidities and sunshine this coming Monday as our country stops and remembers those who offered the ultimate sacrifice so that you and I can live in freedom!

We'll have our next email update next Tuesday morning.


Getting the Japanese to come to grips with accepting cattle older than 20 months vital to our beef trade with our former number one customer!
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Once again, our guest this Friday on the Beef Buzz from the Radio Oklahoma Network is Phil Seng of the US Meat Export Federation. He and Greg Haines of the Tokyo office of the USMEF tell reporters that the tests that have shown that the mice implanted with tissue from those younger cases of BSE that the Japanese claim they had three years ago have shown no signs of developing BSE- these results are as important as the OIE ruling when it comes to getting the Japanese to begin the process of relaxing their strict rules for importing US beef, acording to Seng, President and CEO of the USMEF.

That process will likely begin after Japanese elections in July- and you can hear Phil and Greg detail how they see this playing out by clicking below and listening to today's Beef Buzz from our website.

Click here to listen to Ron, Phil and Greg on today's Beef Buzz!!!


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. Now is a GREAT time to sign up for the 2007 Tulsa Show or the 2008 Souther Plains 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.

Click here to check out WWW.OklahomaFarmReport.Com



God Bless! You can reach us at the following:
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phone: 405-473-6144
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