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 have American Farmers & Ranchers Mutual Insurance Company as a regular sponsor of our daily update- click here to go to their AFR web site to learn more about their efforts to serve rural America!

We are also proud to have P & K Equipment/ P & K Wind Energy as our newest regular sponsor of our daily email update. P & K is the premiere John Deere dealer in Oklahoma, with nine locations to serve you, and the P & K team are excited about their new Wind Power program, as they offer Endurance Wind Power wind turbines. Click here for more from the P&K website. And we are excited to have as one of our sponsors for the daily email Producers Cooperative Oil Mill, with 64 years of progress through producer ownership. Call Brandon Winters at 405-232-7555 for more information on the oilseed crops they handle, including sunflowers and canola- and remember they post closing market prices for canola and sunflowers on the PCOM website- go there by clicking here.

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We talked with Mike Schulte of the Oklahoma Wheat Commission and he continues to be concerned about how many acres have been abandoned this year- as he believes that will be one of the keys to how many bushels we end up harvesting this season. He is hopeful that the Panhandle will end up with a normal to above normal crop, helping the final Oklahoma production number get close to that 73.5 million bushel level predicted by USDA based on their surveys up to June first.

Click on the link below for our Harvest Update page- the interview with Mike Schulte is the top story as we write this early on this Wednesday morning- but we will add reports and photos as you send them to us- drop me an email and let me know how things are going in your neck of the woods. Our story with Schulte includes a five minute interview that will help catch you up on conditions around the state- so check it out.

Click here for our 2009 Harvest Updates- as found on www.OklahomaFarmReport.Com

LMIC also expects marketings in May were soft in 2009 versus 2008- probably nine percent off of a year ago. The overall cattle on feed number may be about three percent under June 1, 2008.

You can hear Erica make her case for these expectations on our Wednesday Beef Buzz, as heard on radio stations around the state on the Radio Oklahoma Network. Of course, our Beef Buzz reports also are on our website, and we have today's Beef Buzz linked below for you to jump to and be able to hear. Our thanks to K-State and their Agriculture Today show for the audio comments with Erica Rosa of the Livestock Market Information Center.

Click here for our midweek Beef Buzz as we talk Cattle on Feed with Erica Rosa of LMIC

Terry Peach, our Oklahoma Commissioner of Ag, is the outgoing President of SASDA, and he has hosted this conference this week, including the dinner and entertainment that followed last night at the National Cowboy Museum.

They have toured and seen some of Oklahoma agriculture, and have also spent time on several policy issues- we talked briefly with Commissioner Peach last night about how the meeting is going- and we did talk about two of the hot topics right now- Climate Change and Premise ID. Click on the link below to take a listen.

Click here for more on SASDA and the policy issues they have talked about this week here in OKC.

"The Board of Directors of the National Sorghum Producers fully supports the ongoing efforts of House Agriculture Chairman Collin Peterson as he works to modify climate change legislation to represent agriculture's interests. However, we believe it is vital to protect our producer members by opposing H.R. 2454, the American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009, as it is currently written.

"The far-reaching impacts of this legislation are not sufficiently understood to determine its real impact on farmers. As written, this bill includes little to nothing that would encourage sorghum producers to support it. We firmly oppose placing oversight of this program with the Environmental Protection Agency, feel strongly that early adopters of conservation practices should be equally compensated for those practices, and believe that our cost per acre of production will increase dramatically under the current legislation with little chance to recover those costs. We will continue to monitor this bill for potential changes before it goes before the full House of Representatives, but oppose it in its current form."

Both organizations stressed that they support current CWA provisions and enforcement of state and local environmental protection laws The groups have expressed their concern to Congress that eliminating the word "navigable" from the definition of "Waters of the United States" would result in an unprecedented expansion of federal authority.

AFBF President Bob Stallman called the bill "regulatory overkill" which largely disregards the positive conservation role farmers and ranchers are playing. "By replacing 'navigable waters' with 'all intrastate waters,' the federal government would have control of structures such as drainage ditches, which are only wet during rain events," Stallman said. "Rather than restore the Clean Water Act, it just brings a new truckload of restrictions for the people who do most to protect our water."

Clcik here for the rest of our webstory of this alliance uniting against this push to expand EPA's reach across the countryside.

In the news release from the company- Smithfield's CEO Larry Pope writes "Fiscal 2009 was one of the most challenging years in over three decades for the company. We faced grain and oil markets that reached record highs and then fell precipitously. These input dynamics, combined with an oversupply of all proteins as well as a worldwide recession and credit constraints, put significant pressure on the business. But despite the challenges we confronted, we did not sit on the sidelines and wait for the economic conditions to improve; we have taken numerous actions to make us a more profitable company: namely, we repositioned the company's operations and made meaningful improvements to our liquidity and financial strength. As a result, I am especially pleased with our packaged meats business which delivered record profits even as fresh pork was weak in the face of an economic downturn. For the full year, the pork segment produced record profits, before the $88 million of restructuring costs, and is set to deliver very strong results going forward."

We have an audio overview and more details of the Smithfield financials on our website. It's interesting that Pope blames ethanol for a good part of the Smithfield woes in the hog production side of their business. Click on the link below and check it out.

Click here for more on the Smithfield Food Financials showing their first annual loss in 30 years.

We had problems with getting the link in place for the audio interview from earlier this week with AFR President Terry Detrick- finally got that fixed and for those of you that wanted to hear Terry's comments on Climate Change and Animal ID- click here and we will jump you to the story updated with the audio link.

Finally, a quick note for those of you with pldi.net email addresses- Pioneer swears they have "whitelisted" the address- if you can read this- I guess they were telling the truth- but if things are still coming to you slowly or sporadically, drop me an email and I have a work around that people tell me is working well. Thanks for your patience- I hear it is much more than just our little fight- that they have huge email delay problems of all kinds from many different directions.

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

Here are some links we will leave in place on an ongoing basis- Click on the name of the report to go to that link:
Our Daily Market Wrapup from the Radio Oklahoma Network with Ed Richards and Tom Leffler- analyzing the Futures Markets from the previous Day-
Ron on RON Markets as heard on K101 mornings with cash and futures reviewed- includes where the Cash Cattle market stands, the latest Feeder Cattle Markets Etc.
Previous Day's Wheat Market Recap- Two Pager From The Kansas City Board of Trade looks at all three US Wheat Futures Exchanges with extra info on Hard Red Winter Wheat and the why of that day's market.
Daily Oklahoma Cash Grain Prices- As Reported by the Oklahoma Dept. of Agriculture.
The National Daily Feeder & Stocker Cattle Summary- as prepared by USDA.
The National Daily Slaughter Cattle Summary- as prepared by USDA.
Finally, Here is the Daily Volume and Price Summary from the Texas Cattle Feeders Association.