"More than $4 billion is needed by the end of March to help nearly 20 million people who risk starvation in Nigeria, Somalia, South Sudan and Yemen, United Nations Secretary General Antonio Guterres said on Wednesday."

"Michelle Obama’s garden stays. First lady Melania Trump says through a spokeswoman that she is committed to preserving gardens at the White House, including the bountiful one planted by her immediate predecessor."

"In the opening weeks of the Trump administration, the state of animal welfare—as with so much other policy—is in upheaval. On February 9, the administration froze the implementation of the just-passed Organic Livestock and Poultry Practices (OLPP)—the only comprehensive federal law that regulates the welfare of animals raised for food."

"Hunger, malnutrition and death threaten 6.5 million children in the impoverished drylands of Somalia, Ethiopia and Kenya due to back-to-back droughts, a charity said on Friday, with spring rains also predicted to be poor."

"At first glance, food policy seems to be an afterthought in the Trump administration. The campaign saw few debates about food or farming. And the president-elect hasn't yet nominated someone to head the Department of Agriculture or the Food and Drug Administration. But Donald Trump's lack of attention won't make future food battles any less cutthroat."

"Blood screening technology may be able to diagnose infections before symptoms emerge".

"Eating beef from an animal infected with mad cow disease can lead to an untreatable condition that attacks the brain and is universally fatal, but symptoms can take decades to emerge. Thankfully, a new blood-screening technology can spot the condition, known as variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, with 100 percent accuracy, perhaps years before it attacks.  

The next farm bill will be the first in a long time put together entirely by a Republican government. How will big agribusiness and ordinary food consumers fare?

"For more than a decade, Coca-Cola, Pepsi and other beverage companies have fought mightily against efforts to tax sugary sodas, defeating more than three dozen such proposals around the country. But this month, voters in San Francisco, Oakland and Albany, Calif., as well as Boulder, Colo., stunned the industry by approving ballot measures in favor of soda taxes."