The world's largest seed company, Monsanto is offering a 55 percent rebate to cotton and soybean growers who buy its weedkiller, dicamba, for 2018 crops, said Reuters. Weed specialists said the cash-back offer could persuade growers to buy the herbicide, and the pricey GE seeds that are paired with it, despite stricter EPA rules on who can apply the herbicide and when it can be used.

Undocumented immigrants have become cautious of seeking food aid in the Trump era because of fears they could be targeted for deportation, said a panel of food security experts last week in San Francisco.

The Trump administration sounded out Iowa's Republican senators about a meeting to discuss the biofuels mandate and its impact on oil-producing states, says Reuters. "The effort is the clearest sign yet (President) Trump is seeking to mediate the long-running dispute between the U.S. oil industry and corn growers over the Renewable Fuel Standard, a law requiring refiners to blend increasing volumes of biofuels like corn-based ethanol every year into the nation's fuels."

In announcing his retirement at the end of 2018, House Judiciary chairman Bob Goodlatte said his goals in his final year in office include "bolstering enforcement of our immigration laws and reforming the legal immigration system." Goodlatte, a Virginia Republican, is the sponsor of divisive legislation to create a year-round H-2C agricultural guestworker program to replace seasonal H-2A visas.

As Mexicans consume more calories, there is a debate whether free trade and foreign investment resulted in an epidemic of obesity or whether it reduced malnutrition by lowering food prices, says the New York Times. Fast food restaurants and convenience stores multiplied across Mexico as its economy grew in recent decades.

The Kansas City Federal Reserve Bank says the prolonged decline in farm income pushed farmland values lower in the central and northern Plains, "but at a modest pace" of 3 percent for non-irrigated land during the summer. The Chicago Federal Reserve Bank said land values, although relatively stable for the past year, fell 1 percent during the summer.

The Saudi-led blockade of ports into Yemen "is limiting supplies of fuel, food and medicines," said a senior UN official in the country. "The lives of millions of people, including 8.4 million Yemenis who are a step away from famine, hinge on our ability to continue our operations and to provide health, safe water, food, shelter and nutrition support." The statement by humanitarian coordinator Jamie McGoldrick follows an assessment by the Famine Early Warning Systems Network (FEWS NET) that there is a credible risk of famine in 2018 in Yemen, South Sudan, Somalia and Nigeria.

The Senate Agriculture Committee cleared for a floor vote the nomination of Stephen Vaden to become USDA's chief lawyer with the senior Democrat on the panel, Debbie Stabenow, expressing reservations over Vaden's past legal work and the personnel practices he has implemented in USDA's legal shop. A member of the administration's "beach head" team, Vaden effectively is the interim leader of the office following his appointment as principal deputy general counsel.

The USDA’s acting chief scientist, Chavonda Jacobs-Young, has publicly criticized the World Health Organization’s updated recommendations for curbing antibiotic use on farms, citing poor science.

The algal bloom in Lake Erie this summer, fed in part by agricultural runoff, was roughly the same size as in 2013, the third-most severe bloom in 15 years of federal records, said the Associated Press.

Wind turbine companies "have lobbied for low or non-existent property taxes and steep depreciation schedules," meaning little new revenue for rural school districts from the giant windmills that dot the Midwest and Plains, says the Midwest Center for Investigative Reporting and Flatland, a part of Kansas City PBS. In an introduction to four stories about wind power, the MCIR and Flatland say their multi-state collaboration uncovered "how states like Kansas have given away the wind farm."

The Government Accountability Office urged federal regulators, in the words of Harvest Public Media, "to better protect meatpacking workers, who are often exposed to dangerous chemicals, not allowed bathroom breaks and refused medical treatment." The GAO report said workers sometimes decide not to report problems for fear of retaliation, making it harder for the Occupational Safety and Health Administration to get a clear picture of conditions.

Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue said he is “talking with the administration and Congress about some mitigation efforts” if President Trump withdraws the United States from NAFTA, said Politico.

Rural Virginia has trended Republican in the past two decades, and the statewide election this week underlined its political divergence from the state’s metropolitan areas, said the Daily Yonder.

Pennsylvania Sen. Bob Casey says modifications to three USDA conservation programs will help organic farmers get established. A member of the Senate Agriculture Committee, Casey said with demand on the rise for organic food, "we must do all we can to help American farmers and ranchers meet this demand."

The USDA will begin tests in Texas and Alabama of a toxic sodium nitrate bait to kill feral swine, said USDA's Wildlife Services, which combats invasive animals. More than 6 million wild pigs roam parts of at least 35 states and cause an estimated $190 million in crop damage annually, says the USDA.

EU regulators are looking "very carefully" at competition issues in Bayer's proposed purchase of Monsanto to make sure farmers will have a choice of products at affordable prices, said Bloomberg. The wire service said Bayer, based in Germany, was to receive a so-called statement of objections as soon as this week, which could lead the companies to offer a package of concessions.

The holding company Icahn Enterprises was subpoenaed for information about its founder’s attempts to change U.S. biofuel policy while he was an informal White House advisor, reported Bloomberg.