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Just under five hundred Ky farmers are headed to Nashville next month to attend the 99^th annual convention of the American Farm Bureau (Jan 5-10).  Feldhaus visits with Ky Farm Bureau President, Mark Haney, who discusses a few of the national issues that voting delegates will be discussing.

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The “Plate It Up Kentucky Proud” program has been designed by Kentucky Proud and the extension service to encourage the citizen to buy local foods and to eat healthier. One element of that is distribution of recipe cards at farmers markets to encourage smarter eating habits.  Jessica Houlihan on the faculty of UK’s Department of Dietetics and Human Nutrition explains how her students help develop recipes for this project.

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CRISPR stands for “clustered regularly interspaced palandromic repeats” and it is newly developed technology that can improve success rates in genetic engineering of plants and animals. Dr. Paul Vincelli, UK plant pathology professor, discusses that advancement, and he talks about his work in presenting the science behind the pros and cons of genetic engineering.

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As winter time weather kicks into high gear the need to feed hay to livestock will be increasing, but so too will be scams involving hay purchases.  The Ky Ag Department’s Kim Field discusses what to watch out for and encourages buyers and sellers of hay to get a written contract. 

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A guest speaker at the upcoming state annual meetings of the fruit and vegetable grower groups (Jan 8-9) will be Tamara Sandberg with the Ky Association of Food Banks.  She details success of the “farm to food banks” program funded by the Ky Ag Dept and she’ll be encouraging more producers to participate to help feed the hungry. 

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Again today, soybean futures closed lower and continued the downtrend started 2 weeks ago. The weather forecasts are too favorable in South America.  Corn closed up 2 cents on the wheat strength and rising corn values in China.  Cattle futures closed moderately lower in LC and sharply lower in Feeder Cattle.

CBOT futures closed steady in corn and wheat, but lower in soybeans and meal. Forecasts for rain in South America weighed on the soy complex.  While the nearby December LC closed unchanged, deferred LC and FC contracts closed lower.  Lean Hog futures closed lower in follow-through selling after Monday’s bearish reversal.