"Drought conditions in the United States eased slightly over the last week, though dry soils and water shortages persisted across wide swaths of important farm states, particularly Nebraska, a key corn and cattle state."

"The first major snowfall of the year and a cold snap set to sweep into the northern Midwest could harm some late-maturing corn and soybeans crops and delay the harvest, an agricultural meteorologist and the National Weather Service said on Thursday."

"Approval of foods from genetically modified animals is unjustifiably slow, scientists say; some are looking abroad."

"U.S. farmers are using more hazardous pesticides to fight weeds and insects due largely to heavy adoption of genetically modified crop technologies that are sparking a rise of 'superweeds' and hard-to-kill insects, according to a newly released study."

"The U.S. Food and Drug Administration said it is having difficulty implementing expansive new rules to improve food safety, nearly two years after President Barack Obama signed the standards into law, because of a lack of funding."

Climate change and warmer temperatures are already hurting agriculture in California.

"With the worst drought in half a century driving feed prices sky high, pork producers are facing an untenable choice: drain their savings and gamble on a better future, or sell off their herd and get out of the business altogether."

"Global grain production is expected to hit record levels this year, despite the drought that gripped most of the Midwest, the Worldwatch Institute said in a report released yesterday."

The biosafety level 3 facility on Plum Island in Long Island Sound has been converted from biowarfare to studying animal diseases, harmless to humans, that could come into the U.S. from abroad. Some of those diseases could devastate U.S. flocks or herds. The secrecy and message-control surrounding the facility is intense. But is the secrecy meant to protect the U.S. public or to protect the financial interests of the agriculture industry?

"British scientists have shot down a study on declining honeybee populations that triggered a French ban on a pesticide made by Swiss agrochemicals group Syngenta."