Record flooding in Spring 2019 caused Oklahoma’s only inland navigable waterway to close. Closure disrupted the supply chains of agricultural and manufacturing industries. This research quantified the economic loss experienced by the region’s economy due to the disruption of waterway transportation services. We used a multi-regional input–output model to analyze impacts for the state’s congressional districts. The study found expected losses in employment of 63 to 750 jobs, $14.5 million to $165 million in output, and $5.7 million to $68.7 million in value-added to the economy, depending on the expected duration of closure and on assumptions regarding the sourcing of intermediate goods and services. Economic impacts were disproportionately experienced in different congressional districts and across economic sectors, depending on how tightly integrated those districts were to the manufacturing or agricultural sectors.

This paper reports beetle pests common to flourmills targeted during a series of trapping studies over a two-year period in flourmill 1 and a one year period in flourmill 2. Objectives were (1) use pheromone-baited traps to detect T. castaneum (Herbst) and other pest species present for their distribution over space and time, (2) monitor T. castaneum activity before and after fumigations to assess efficacy of the treatment, and (3) correlate counts of T. castaneum via trap capture against direct T. castaneum counts from samples of the milled flour to assess the value of trap data to estimate relative size of the pest population. Traps were deployed in two different flourmills over two consecutive years. T. castaneum was the most commonly trapped beetle during both years in mill 1. In mill 2, Typhaea stercorea (L.) and Cryptolestes ferrugineus (Stephens) were both captured in higher numbers than T. castaneum. In mill 1, trap capture was higher overall during Year 2 for most of the species compared with capture during Year 1, likely due to a dust cover modification made for the pitfall trap used in Year 2. Trap capture was also evaluated by location within the mills and a significant difference was found in the capture of T. stercorea during both years in mill 1. T. castaneum captures were significantly reduced following most fumigations, which used methyl bromide in milling areas and phosphine in bulk-stored finished flour. However, in most cases trap catches showed that beetle populations were not eliminated. Trap captures after fumigation suggest either that the fumigations were not entirely effective, or that full grown adult beetles were entering the mill soon after fumigation. When captures of T. castaneum from traps in two spaces of mill 1 during Year 2 were compared with counts of beetles from samples of siftings collected in the finished flour, the correlation coefficients were nearly significant for both sets of traps.

This article describes a spreadsheet-based template designed to help livestock producers and others examine the feasibility of operating a small, multi-species meat processing plant. The template allows users to define plant size and capacity, including the breakdown of processing activities by species and additional revenue opportunities. The spreadsheet utilizes user-defined information on capital and operating costs to develop depreciation schedules, loan amortization schedules, 10-year profit/loss projections, cash flow projections, and various measure of return on investment. An imbedded user's guide and a companion "how to use" video helps template users examine the financial feasibility of a meat plant venture.