The congressionally created Foundation for Food and Agriculture Research has announced a $20-million research and education project to speed the adoption of soil management systems nationwide.

Freshman Republican John Faso and veteran Democrat Rick Nolan, both of whom serve on the House Agriculture Committee, are among the 10 most vulnerable House incumbents a year ahead of the 2018 midterm elections, says Roll Call.

The state Fish and Game Commission voted unanimously to ban sport fishing of abalone in Northern California in 2018 in an attempt to preserve the imperiled marine snail, said the San Francisco Chronicle.

Steve Vaden is wearing two hats at USDA: He's the White House nominee to become the department's top lawyer, known as the general counsel, and he is effectively leading the legal shop as the principal deputy general counsel. Politico says morale "has plummeted" because Vaden "is enforcing workplace changes that have provoked unusually bitter labor negotiations" and because of his record in private practice defending state voter ID laws that were challenged as racially discriminatory.

A year ago, rural America voted two-to-one to put Donald Trump in the White House. Rural Virginians are certain to vote heavily for Republican gubernatorial candidate Ed Gillespie in today’s election, and “the margin ... may affect the statewide result,” says the Daily Yonder.

Farmers in most of the United States will receive questionnaires this month as part of the twice-a-decade Census of Agriculture, but the USDA has decided to delay the survey of producers in Puerto Rico until December 2018.

Days after President Trump cut 2 million acres from a pair of national monuments in Utah, Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke recommended reductions of two additional monuments, Gold Butte and Cascade-Siskiyou, to allow “traditional use” of federal land.

Rep. Rob Bishop, a fierce opponent of the Endangered Species Act, recently steered five bills meant to ultimately dismantle the law through the House Natural Resources Committee, which he chairs, says The Washington Post.

Although only a couple of members of Congress are known as active farmers, 32 current lawmakers have received farm subsidies, according to the Environmental Working Group database.

In another sign of trouble for so-called advanced biofuels, the newly created giant corporation DowDuPont stopped operations at its $225 million cellulosic ethanol plant in Nevada, Iowa, and hopes to find a buyer for the plant with a 30-million-gallon-a-year capacity, said the Des Moines Register. Last December, Abengoa Bioenergy sold its cellulosic plant in Hugoton, Kan., for pennies on the dollar as part of a bankruptcy liquidation of assets.

Some 72 million acres of farmland are enrolled in the Conservation Stewardship Program (CSP), 8 percent of all U.S. farmland and equal in size to Iowa and Georgia combined, says the National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition in a report. The CSP was the first program at USDA to provide an annual payment to producers who adopt conservation practices as part of their daily operations. The green-payment program is nearly three times larger than the better-known Conservation Reserve, which pays landowners to idle fragile land.

Much of the arable land in China, the world's largest rice producer, is off-limits for growing rice because there is too much salt in the soil or in the available irrigation water. Researchers are making progress, however, on developing 200 varieties that tolerate salty water although at far lower levels than found in sea water.

Two of the major fibers available to clothing manufacturers are cotton and polyester. Cotton is becoming more price-competitive against petroleum-based polyester, which should boost global demand for the field-grown fiber, but it won't stop a build-up of cotton supplies, says the International Cotton Advisory Committee.

One in six of the Christmas trees harvested in Oregon is sold south of the border in Mexico, so state officials are keenly monitoring negotiations for the new NAFTA. If talks collapse or the United States withdraws from the free trade agreement, "it could result in Mexico imposing a retaliatory tariff on the U.S. and pivoting to Canadian suppliers," says Bloomberg.

After users complained of skin irritation, including rashes, Monsanto is delaying until further notice the launch of NemaStrike — a new farm chemical used to kill worms on corn, soybeans and cotton. “The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) did extensive evaluations of the product before approving it for use, according to Monsanto, which has described NemaStrike as ‘blockbuster technology,’” reports Reuters. Monsanto argues that some of its field testers may have been using the spray incorrectly or not wearing the proper protection.

For 15 years, USDA has allowed hydroponic crops to be sold as organic and, at a meeting this week in Jacksonville, Fla., the advisory National Organic Standards Board decided to let that practice continue. The board rejected, 8-7, a proposal to deny the USDA Organic label to hydoponics and aquaponics despite a long-running campaign to limit the label to plants grown in soil.