Howdy Neighbors!

Here's your morning farm news headlines from the Director of Farm Programming for the Radio Oklahoma Network, Ron Hays. We are pleased 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!

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"I have real concerns about this administration's position on eliminating direct payments to our producers, which would be detrimental to their livelihoods. Our farmers and ranchers are some of the hardest working people in the U.S. and they are struggling to make a living in a difficult economy. Yet, it's clear that both Secretary Vilsack and President Obama don't understand the problems facing our agriculture community. And, they absolutely don't understand how important rural communities are to our economy," said Ranking Member Frank Lucas.

We have the letter that Congressman Lucas sent to Secretary Tom Vilsack on our website- as well as an extensive interview that our own Ed Richards conducted with him on not just the Direct Payment concern, but also the stimulus and rural America, COOL and the EPA wanting to get into the "dust regulation" business. Click on the link below for that story and audio you can take a listen to.

Click here for more on the Frank Lucas correspondence with USDA's Tom Vilsack.

"Representing America's family farmers, ranchers and rural citizens has been a privilege and an honor," Buis said. "I've had the opportunity to meet farmers from all corners of the country and am continually impressed with their optimism, hard work and dedication to feeding, and now fueling, our nation."

"It was not an easy decision, but I am excited to take on this new challenge and continue advocating for our nation's family farmers and ranchers," Buis said. "The production of renewable energy from our farms is the greatest economic opportunity for rural America that I've seen in my lifetime. Home-grown renewable fuels create jobs, reduce our dependence on foreign oil and protect our environment. I am looking forward to advancing this cause and addressing the myths and the facts when it comes to renewable fuels."
Courtesy of our friend and colleague Chuck Zimmerman, we have the conference call that Growth Energy conducted introducing Tom Buis in this new role he will be stepping into. Click on our link below for our story and the link to jump to Chuck's audio of that event.

Click here for more on the Tom Buis from NFU to Ethanol Exec

The regulation of agriculture dust means that activities ranging from soil tilling, cattle movements in feedyards, driving on unpaved roads, and planting and harvesting crops could all come under the regulatory strong-arm of the EPA. "Our producers already carry out stringent dust control measures each and every day," says Thies. "But the requirements imposed by EPA's rule are simply unnecessary and unattainable. In today's tough economic times, this unwarranted and burdensome government interference could prove to be devastating for America's cattle producers."

EPA released a final rule on regulating particles in the air under the Clean Air Act in October 2006, which says that states should focus on regulating dust in urban areas instead of rural areas because of a lack of scientific data on health or environmental affects of agriculture dust. However, the EPA stopped short of exempting agriculture dust from regulation. Consequently, NCBA filed an appeal of the rule in the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals. Oral arguments were held on September 15, 2008.
Dust has been included as a pollutant, despite the fact that health studies do not show it is a concern. In order to regulate a pollutant under NAAQS, scientific studies are supposed to show that the pollutant causes adverse effects on health or the environment. "The Clean Air Act is intended to regulate pollutants that cause adverse health or environmental effects," Thies explains. "Clearly, expanding this to include the regulation of agriculture dust goes beyond the intent of the Act."

NCBA has a background paper on dust and the Clean Air Act- Click here to read it

"This is a case that involves a man who was given the responsibility of taking care of another person's ranch and livestock and later selling cattle that didn't belong to him and keeping the money," he said. "When the owner returned and discovered some of his cattle were missing, the suspect went on the run. He is essentially a gypsy cowboy and moved from ranch to ranch making it very difficult to locate him. We are very grateful for the cooperation and assistance we received from other law enforcement agencies and appreciate the working relationship we have with them."

Authorities had sought Gammon since last May and only this week learned that the suspect was hiding in Roger Mills County. Grimes said his department was afraid Gammon would run again if he learned law enforcement officials had located him so they asked the county sheriff's department to make the arrest. "They had him in custody 30 minutes after we made our request," he said. "He will now be extradited to Murray County where we will question him about some other cases in which he is a suspect."

Steinert tells us he is a great believer in rotation- which he says helps keep their family labor and machinery busy. In 2009, Bill and Rhonda will actually have more acres of corn than wheat, although he always wants to come back to wheat, once he has been able to clean up the weeds in those fields.

We sat down and talked at length with Bill about his family farm operation and his experiences in dealing with crop rotations, winter canola(he has had problems in making it work so he has no acres of canola this spring) and with milo- another crop that he has had problems with. Click on the link below and you can jump to our story on the web- and take a listen to a farmer who has worked hard- and also worked smart in growing their operation and including family in its makeup.

Click here for more on the Steinert Farms Operation in Garfield County

Audry constantly looks for way to teach her students about agriculture. She says, "Even though we live in a rural area, several of my students do not know a lot about agriculture." Audry has created an art in agriculture unit using AITC lessons that correlate to the important Priority Academic Student Skills. She uses lessons such as "Beautiful Bovine" and "Bovine Oversteps Boundaries" to teach comparison. Her use of Ag in the Classroom to teach important concepts is superb.

Mrs. Harmon has helped with Ag in the Classroom curriculum development, attended workshops, and taught Ag in the Classroom to a California 4-H group as well as Farm Bureau Women and Young Farmers and Ranchers groups. Mrs. Harmon is a graduate of Oklahoma State University and has taught 9 years. Audry is married to Burton Harmon, Oklahoma Farm Bureau, North Central Oklahoma Field Rep. They have three sons.

Click here for more on Audry Harmon winning Ag inthe Classroom Teacher of the Year- including a snapshot of the proud winner!

He offered his perspective on how he has helped farmers in the state of Kentucky intensify their wheat management practices that has resulted in an impressive increase in wheat yields in that state. It's a state that grows soft red winter wheat- and he says that most farmers who he works with are disappointed if they cannot hit 100 bushels of wheat per acre. The average in that state has climbed since intensified wheat management has been introduced in that state in the late 1980s- rising from around 40 bushels per acre to nearly 70 bushels per acre.

Needham says many of these same practices can work here in the central plains where hard red winter wheat is grown as well. We talked with him about his strategy after his presentation at the Ag Issues Forum Presented by Bayer Crop Science this week as the Commodity Classic was getting ready to kick off. Jump to the website by following the link below and you can listen to our brief conversation with Needham about what he sees as the things that have to be addressed to see wheat yields rise.

Click here for more on Growing Wheat Yields Here in HRW Country

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.