President Trump will meet oil industry leaders and their congressional allies for a discussion of the biofuels mandate, reported Reuters, based on two sources. The meeting "could set the stage for negotiations to overhaul the U.S. Renewable Fuel Standard," said the wire service; the industry has pressed for years to eliminate the mandate or revise its requirement to blend biofuels into gasoline and diesel fuel.

China's plan to move to a 10 percent blend of ethanol into its gasoline supply will be a boon for U.S. ethanol exports, said ADM chief executive Juan Luciano. Agrimoney says that Luciano told investors that China could need imports of 8 million tons a year by 2020 to satisfy the E10 target because of the nation's longer-term fuel strategy.

Large farms, with more than $1 million a year in gross income, nearly doubled their share of U.S. agricultural production in the past quarter-century, says USDA's Economic Research Service. As production shifted to larger farms, so did crop subsidies and crop insurance indemnities, says the ERS, which made the comparison on inflation-adjusted revenue figures.

The $1.5 trillion tax-cut package unveiled by House Republicans would eliminate the estate tax – the most-hated tax in agriculture – in 2023, while allowing larger deductions for purchases of equipment, according to the Ways and Means Committee. Farm groups were muted in their comments as they assessed the 429-page bill.

Reps. Sean Maloney of New York state and Ryan Costello of Pennsylvania unveiled a U.S. House bill to help young and beginning farmers get established. The sponsors said action is needed because of the advancing average age of U.S. farmers, nearly 60 in the 2012 Ag Census.

Maple Leaf Foods, Canada's largest distributor of packaged meats, says it will buy Field Roast Grain Meat Co. in an expansion of its role in the North American market for alternative proteins. Based in Seattle, Field Roast produces grain-based "meat" and vegan cheese products, such as plant-based roasts, sausages, burgers and sliced cheese. It also makes a frozen vegan mac-and-cheese.

Congress "is falling short when it comes to food policy, showing little progress" this year, says Food Policy Action, established in 2012 as the food movement's voice in Washington. In releasing its annual scorecard of members of the House and Senate, the group said the average score was 49 percent, down from the 57 percent average of the two-year 114th Congress, which ended in 2016.

Mexican drug cartels, operating illegal marijuana farms on public lands, are polluting forests and saddling the federal government with millions of dollars in clean-up costs. Trespass marijuana farms are thought to number in the hundreds of thousands in California alone. The sites “wreak havoc on the land, leaving behind hundreds of thousands of pounds of garbage, leaching caustic chemicals, polluting watersheds, and damaging the habitat of endangered and at-risk species,” reports High Country News.

Three out of four farmers and farmworkers say they have been affected directly by opioid abuse, according to a survey commissioned by the two largest U.S. farm groups.

Midwestern farmers, seeking to expand their crop lands, are destroying millions of trees that helped protect the region's soil after the catastrophic Dust Bowl of the 1930s. The removal of these trees is expected to worsen the impact of a drought that could come as climate warms the region, says Carson Vaughn in FERN’s story with Weather.com.

The USDA's Agriculture and Food Research Initiative, a program for competitive grants, is running on half of the money that was anticipated when Congress created AFRI 10 years ago, says a report by a group of ag researchers. "Federal investment in food sciences has remained flat as the number of threats to our food system continues to climb," said Thomas Grumbly of the Supporters of Agricultural Research (SoAR). The groups says ag research should be a top priority in the 2018 farm bill.

Francis Thicke, who owns a certified organic dairy farm in Iowa, is ending his five-year term on the National Organic Standards Board with criticism of the influence of “big business” on the USDA organic program and with support for an add-on organic label that “represents real organic food.”

During a visit to Utah next week, President Trump will announce that he is lopping a combined 2 million acres from the Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante national monuments, reducing them to 37 percent of their current size, said the Washington Post.

President Trump's repeated threats to withdraw from NAFTA are scaring away customers for U.S. ag exports, farm leaders said at a U.S. Chamber of Commerce session on "The future of NAFTA." Gordon Stoner of the National Association of Wheat Growers said the informal slogan of farm groups – "do no harm" – when negotiations began for the new NAFTA should be replaced with "do no more harm."

The Republican–Democrat battle for control of the House “looks something like a coin flip,” says Sabato’s Crystal Ball, which says three members of the House Agriculture Committee are toss-ups for re-election next year.

Some leading university researchers "are being purged" from key EPA advisory panels under a rule announced by Administrator Scott Pruitt that bars membership by scientists at the same time they receive EPA grant money, says Science magazine. "It marks a major change in who can serve on the committees, which help steer EPA research and regulations by providing input on scientific questions."

With the commercial crab-fishing season approaching, California officials warn that toxic algae might delay this year’s catch. “Domoic acid is the naturally occurring toxin caused by algal blooms that delayed the past two Dungeness crab seasons,” explains the San Francisco Chronicle. “According to test results from the California Department of Public Health, elevated levels of the toxin have shown up in samples of Dungeness crab collected in recent weeks at several North Coast ports.”