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 KIS Futures as a regular sponsor of our daily email update. KIS Futures provides Oklahoma Farmers & Ranchers with futures & options hedging services in the livestock and grain markets- Click here for the free market quote page they provide us for our website or call them at 1-800-256-2555.

We are also 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.
And we salute our longest running email sponsor- Midwest Farm Shows, producer of the springtime Southern Plains Farm Show, as well as the December 2009 Tulsa Farm Show. Midwest Farm Shows wants to invite FFA chapters to participate in the 2009 Tulsa Farm Show Livestock Skills Handling Contest- you have to take the qualifying test during the Big 3 Livestock Field Days on July 15- Click here for more information.

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.

We talked with Congressman Lucas about this aspect of the Climate Change bill that was approved by the House by a very narrow margin, as well as other aspects of the deal that Collin Peterson agreed to to vote in favor of the measure and get it through the House.

Congressman Lucas had a total of four Town Hall Meetings on Tuesday, with four more scheduled for today. Click here for that calendar item that lists those locations.

Our link below will take you to our complete exclusive conversation that we had with Congressman Lucas before the first of those town hall meetings yesterday morning in Guthrie. Click on it and take a listen- we talk Climate Change but also several other issues that may be ahead for the House Ag Committee, including Food Safety.

Click here for our Q&A with Congressman Frank Lucas- to be found on our website, WWW.OklahomaFarmReport.Com

"ACRE/SURE is the most complicated commodity program ever and one that is still not entirely understood. I have been analyzing the program on various farm situations for more than a year and continue to learn about the programs and their interactions with crop insurance. While each program is fairly simple for a specific crop in a specific field, the combination of fields, farms and programs quickly yields an extremely complicated decision matrix.

"Originally the ACRE program did not appear to provide any real net benefits to producers, but because of the sharp decline in price over the last year (and thus sharp decline in revenue) the program may be a best option for some producers. However, each producer will have to determine that as there is no general yardstick with which to guide all producers."

The OSU folks are telling producers that they need to wait as close as they can to the August 14 deadline when it comes to signing up for ACRE- to have the best handle possible on price and yield information. We have more with Michael Dicks on our website- as well as comments from Jody Compiche on the OSU software that is now available on line- we have the link for that as well. Click on the link below to jump to this important page of information.

Click here for more on the ACRE Decision tools available from OSU (and more)

"For the 2009/2010, the greater availability of corn supplies makes it more likely that the EPA will increase the ethanol blend rate from the current 10 percent to 12 percent or 13 percent, effective Jan. 1, 2010," Francl said. "That will in turn utilize some 400 to 500 million more bushels of corn in the 2009/2010 crop year and reduce corn ending stocks by 300 to 400 million bushels. It is also important to remember that about one-third of the corn that is utilized as ethanol comes back as distillers dried grain, which replaces corn and some protein meal."

In the acreage report, NASS pegs corn plantings at 87 million acres, up about 1 million acres from last year and nearly 3 million more acres higher than the March estimate, which caught many analysts by surprise, Francl said.

Click here for more on Terry Francl's thoughts on the reports from USDA- as well as links to those reports.

One company that believes in Oklahoma and its potential in the wind energy arena is Acciona Energy, a 100-year-old company that is second in the world for owning and operating renewables, according to Tom Hiester, vice president with the company. He was the keynote speaker for the conference luncheon. Hiester had a simple premise for his speech, and that is wind is a huge business opportunity but that, like all opportunities, there are hurdles. First and foremost with these hurdles is transmission.

"We need long-distance transmission. We need lots of it ... Wind is a fuel that must be used in place, unlike gas or coal," Hiester noted. This requires transmission lines. The building of transmission lines requires money. The bottom-line question is: Can Oklahoma bring in enough wind to offset the cost of the lines?" The computations that Hiester came up with and shared at the conference last week are staggering- he sees $100 Billion worth of wind energy being generated in Oklahoma once the industry matures and transmission lines are available. We have more on how he came to those numbers in the story on our website- click on the link below for that information.

Click here for more on the Wind Energy Potential that Tom Hiester sees for Oklahoma in the years to come.

The Tweets found on the Social medium Twitter were very interesting- here are a sampling of those that we found as we searched with "Pacelle." TomQuaife writes "Wayne Pacelle, prez. of HSUS, denies on www.agritalk.com that it is his intent is to shut down the livestock industry."
WriteNowBiz quotes Pacelle as saying "If each American cut back on animal consmption by just 10% appr 1 billion fewer animals would be raised for food."
celestelaurent offers this observation "Pacelle admits that HSUS words ballot proposals in a way that consumers will naturally side with without educating them on issues."

Perhaps one of the best Tweets of the day came from Chris Shinn, who has been active in the Young Farmers and Ranchers of the American Farm Bureau- "My Q for Pacelle: Why is HSUS' experience w/livestock better than someone who works daily w/livestock? How many farms does HSUS run?"

Click here to jump to the Agritalk website and their page where you can listen to the full interview with Wayne Pacelle of HSUS

Secretary Vilsack will join Vice President Joe Biden and Commerce Secretary Gary Locke at the launch of the Rural Tour in Wattsburg, Pa. later today, where they will discuss the issue of rural broadband. Vilsack is scheduled to attend all planned Rural Tour events.

The participation of other top administration officials in the Rural Tour, and the variety of topics that will be addressed reflects the array of issues facing rural America, including broad-based rural health, economic development, infrastructure, education, energy, natural resources, and agriculture. Events will be held in Alaska, Louisiana, Nebraska, New Mexico, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Virginia, and Wisconsin.
Click on the link below for more on the tour- as well as an audio conversation fellow farm broadcaster Michelle Rook of South Dakota had yesterday morning with the President on the Rural Tours.

Click here for more on the Rural Tours of the Obama Administration

In addition, we have our ag news headlines being published to Twitter, so when we update a story, a link to that story from our website will be tweeted.

We are just north of 400 followers now- and would love to have you follow us as well- it's quite a community of folks that are out there interested in the world of farming and ranching- and we watch a lot of agricultural news unfold as it happens on Twitter, as well as add our stuff to the discussion as well. Click on the link below to be able to check out our Tweets- and sign up to follow us if you care to do so. One of the best things about Twitter is that, just like this daily email, it's free.

Click here to go check us out on Twitter.

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.
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.