DROUGHT:
Good morning I’m Tyne Morgan. Clinton Griffiths is still on the road covering the 2012 wheat harvest. We begin with growing concerns about dryness in the Corn Belt. Whether it's a catchy phrase like "flash drought", or stubborn dryness, farmers in the Corn Belt are telling us it's way too early to turn-off the spring showers.
OKLAHOMA HARVEST:
Because of the Memorial Day holiday, USDA will delay its weekly crop progress report by a day.
It will be released this afternoon at 4pm eastern. We know Winter Wheat harvest is in full swing in the southern plains. A third is harvested in Texas and Oklahoma and about ten percent in Kansas. Clinton joins us from Kingfisher, Oklahoma.
CRP:
USDA said Friday it would accept nearly 4 million acres into the conservation reserve program. CRP pays Farmers and Ranchers for taking environmentally sensitive land out of production. USDA said the acres would bring total enrollment in the CRP to about 29 million as of October 1st. Even with the additional acres, the figure would still remain below the 32 million acre cap allowed by congress. The proposed Senate farm bill would reduce the maximum CRP acres to 25 million acres by 2017.
2012 FARM BILL:
Meanwhile, the Senate AG Committee chair says it's time to move forward with the 2012 farm bill. Senator Debbie Stabenow says the bill will be brought to the Senate floor for debate during the first week of June. However, our partners at Profarmer are reporting that the farm bill has not been included on the summer legislative agenda on the house-side. That agenda was released Friday by House Majority Leader Eric Cantor.
EGG BILL:
Moving on to other legislation, the controversial egg bill we've been following on Agday has been introduced in the Senate. California Senator Diane Feinstein introduced the bill last week. The bill would create a national standard for hen housing and require producers to move from conventional cages to new enriched cages. The bill was created by the United Egg Producers and HSUS.
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