From: Ron Hays [ron@oklahomafarmreport.com]
Sent: Thursday, August 23, 2007 13:22
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 Wednesday August 22, 2007!
A service of Farm Credit of East Central Oklahoma, American Farmers and Ranchers & Midwest Farm Shows
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-- Our Emails Continue to be in "Lite" Mode.
-- Tropical Intercession Interrupts High Pressure for a Short Time as Erin Strikes the State- But a Fundamental Change Won't Occur Until the Changing of the Season.
-- 185 Oklahoma FFA Members to Receive 2007 American Farmer Degree.
-- Checking the Pulse of Consumers- Kim Essex says Consumers want New Products- Lots of New Tastes and Ideas!
-- Going on Today- The 2007 Wheatland Stocker Conference!
-- Strategic Management- Does it Work on the Ranch?

Howdy Neighbors!

Here's your morning farm news headlines from the Director of Farm Programming for the Radio Oklahoma Network, Ron Hays. We are proud to welcome Farm Credit of East Central Oklahoma as a regular sponsor of our daily email update. Farm Credit of East Central Oklahoma has ten branch offices to serve your farm financing needs and is dedicated to being your first choice for farm credit. Check out their website for more information by clicking here!

We also welcome American Farmers and Ranchers Mutual Insurance Company as a regular sponsor of our daily update- click here to go to their OFU web site to learn more about their efforts to serve rural America!
And our email this morning is also a service of Midwest Farm Shows, featuring the springtime 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.


Our Emails Continue to be in "Lite" Mode.
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The last two weeks of August are the true Dog Days of Summer- and we are out of the office taking some vacation time- and as a result this email will be a "lite" version. The miracle of the Internet means that even though I am thousands of miles from Oklahoma- I can still keep up with things that are going on that affect our farmers, ranchers and those involved in agribusiness.

We will be checking on what is going on in the world of agriculture- and will have that for you daily- although the email will likely be a little shorter than it usually is through the end of next week.

Thanks for your support and encouragement as we have developed this daily news update. It always amazes me that people will seek me out, wherever we are, and will say "thanks" for this particular service. I think it complements what we do on the radio- and we are proud to be trying and developing new ways to get important agricultural information out on a daily basis.


Tropical Intercession Interrupts High Pressure for a Short Time as Erin Strikes the State- But a Fundamental Change Won't Occur Until the Changing of the Season.
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That's one of the things we talked with Dr. Jeanne Schneider about recently after her presentation to the Southern Plains Beef Symposium. Jeanne is a research Metrologist at the Ft. Reno Grazinglands Research Facility of the USDA-ARS. She told us that it will take some of the major pattern changes that are associated with the change of the season- from summer to fall- to likely push the jet stream around enough to help bring back a consistent march of weather making systems through Oklahoma- and that means we could be generally in this pattern for another thirty days or longer. Obviously, a big weather making system like a Gulf Hurricane(such as Dean) could change those dynamics- if one of those storms develop and track far up through Texas and into Oklahoma. . And obviously a tropical depression like Erin brought unbelievable amounts of rain this past weekend to many counties south of a line from around Cheyenne to Enid to Bartlesville.

She believes that we are now in the midst of some changes in bigger weather trends away from the "Non drought" years we saw in the 1980s and 1990s to what might be described as actually a more normal pattern of drier conditions punctuated with very wet periods like saw earlier this year. She points out that even if it does not rain a drop for the rest of the year, there locations in Oklahoma that will actually have above "normal" rainfall totals for the year.

As far as the big predictors of weather like El Nino and La Nina, Jeanne tells us they actually have only marginal impact in the middle part of the country- including southern Kansas, Oklahoma and North Texas. You can hear our full conversation about these topics and the modeling that Jeanne hopes to do in future years for farmers and ranchers by going to the link below.

Click here to listen to Ron and Jeanne talk weather- the Big Picture Version.


185 Oklahoma FFA Members to Receive 2007 American Farmer Degree.
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I will never forget driving to Kansas City a bunch of years ago and receiving my American Farmer Degree- I think that's what they called it back in the 1970s- it was a thrill and a highlight of that part of my life for sure! Well, 185 Oklahoma FFA members will get that thrill in Indianapolis this October at the 80th annual Convention of the FFA organization. They now call it the FFA American Degree- but only a fraction of the membership ever hang in long enough to qualify, so it still means a lot to those who work over multiple years to achieve it.

Like last year, the event will happen at the RCA Dome in downtown Indianapolis and is one of the high points of the convention. The full list is now available and we have linked it on our 2007 National FFA Convention Page on our website- follow the link below and catch up on the early achievements already announced about Oklahoma's High Octane FFA!

Click here for the National FFA Convention Page from WWW.OklahomaFarmReport.Com


Checking the Pulse of Consumers- Kim Essex says Consumers want New Products- Lots of New Tastes and Ideas!
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We wrap up our three day series of Beef Buzz programs with Kim Essex of the National Cattlemen's Beef Association- as she tells us that while consumers still like to cook- but not like the "old" days- they want simple instructions, five or six ingredients at the most and want the finished product to be ready in thirty minutes or less.

Kim also tells us that consumers want choices- lots of choices as they plan their meals. As a result, she says the efforts that industry has expended to come up with new products and to make the product more convenient are essential to keep consumers coming back to beef. They may love the product, but convenience trumps love of the product with the busy lifestyles of consumers.

You can hear the conversation that we had with Kim Essex on this subject by checking out today's Beef Buzz on the Radio Oklahoma Network- or by clicking below for the full version of the program on this subject.

Click here to listen to Ron and Kim talk about what the consumer really expects in today's marketplace on the Beef Buzz!


Going on Today- The 2007 Wheatland Stocker Conference!
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It's one of the most popular one day cattle industry educational events of the year- the 2007 Wheatland Stocker Conference that is happening today at the Cherokee Strip Conference Center in Enid. The program gets underway at 9 am, and goes through mid afternoon.

The program this year will include a couple of Vets from Kansas State University as they talk about maintaining a healthy stocker calf. Dr. Derrell Peel is charging up his Crystal Ball to be able to talk about all the many factors impacting our markets this fall- and David Lalman and Chris Richards from the OSU Animal Science Department will also have a part on this year's program.


Strategic Management- Does it Work on the Ranch?
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That's the issue being raised during the 4th annual Symposium for Excellence in Ranch Management, October 25-26, 2007 at Texas A&M University, Kingsville, Texas, being hosted by the King Ranch Institute for Ranch Management.

.This year's theme is "Developing Management Strategies for a Changing Ranching Industry." The format will be predominantly workshop style to allow greater interaction, as well as provide a stimulating environment for ranchers to develop strategic plans for their own ranching operations. Symposium topics center around developing management strategies for a changing ranching industry brought upon the industry by new external forces. Topics to be addressed include the impact of the new ethanol industry on ranching, the changing marketplace for livestock, and volatility in the industry. Incorporating the balanced scorecard approach to ranch management, the topic of last year's Excellence in Ranch Management Symposium, into strategic planning will also be part of the process described during the program.

Dr. Michael Mozzoco of the University of Illinois is this year's keynote speaker, and he will discuss how strategic management can be applied to the ranching industry. After Mozzoco's keynote address, participants will then rotate through concurrent workshops to discuss and learn about the impact of three new forces on ranching. Those factors that will be addressed include the changing cattle marketplace including all the many branded beef type programs, the impact of ethanol on the cattle business and finally a look at the increasing volatility in our markets and strategies to cope with the swings in the prices of input and the prices for our cattle. We have a link below of the news release put out on this event. Deadline for early registration is October 10- for more information, go to the link or call 361/593-5401.

Click here for more information on the King Ranch Institute for Ranch Management's Symposium for Excellence in Ranch Management.


Our thanks to Midwest Farm Shows, Farm Credit of East Central Oklahoma and American Farmers and Ranchers Mutual Insurance for their support of our daily Farm News Update. For your convenience, we have our sponsors' websites linked at the top of the email- check them out and let these folks know you appreciate the support of this daily email, as their sponsorship helps us keep this arriving in your inbox on a regular basis!

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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