The Arkansas State Plant Board could decide as early as next Thursday to severely restrict use of the weedkiller dicamba on soybeans and cotton in 2018, reports Farm Journal. The proposal to cut off use of dicamba after April 15, prompted by hundreds of complaints of crop damage by the herbicide, was approved by the board's pesticide committee during a meeting in Jonesboro and forwarded to the board for a vote at its quarterly meeting on Sept 21.

With classes resuming in Texas following Hurricane Harvey, schools have federal approval to serve free meals to all of their students through the end of this month, said the USDA, which also relaxed its rules on when meals can be served and what qualifies as a meal. Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue said the goal was " to make it as easy as possible to administer the school meals programs at this time to ensure that no child affected by this disaster goes hungry.”

Cotton growers are headed for the largest cotton harvest in 12 years, said USDA's monthly crop report, although officials acknowledged they don't have a full picture of damage from Hurricanes Harvey and Irma, which struck much of the Cotton Belt. The USDA said it would conduct special surveys in Texas, Louisiana, Florida, Alabama, Georgia and South Carolina to assess how much of the cotton, rice, peanut and soybean crops were harvested.

More than 1,500 Hmong farmers have moved to Northern California’s Siskiyou County and now raise as much as $1 billion-worth of marijuana, according to some estimates. But locals haven’t been pleased to see the newcomers or their crop, which law enforcement destroys during raids, claiming that the pot is sold to the black market.

Former Interior Secretary Sally Jewel calls claims that public groups were kept out of the conversation during planning meetings for the Bears Ears National Monument “nonsense.” The monument was designated by President Obama during his final days in office, but current Secretary of the Interior Ryan Zinke has recommended that the monument’s boundaries be downsized.

Pilgrim's Pride, the second-largest U.S. poultry processor, will buy the European poultry producer Moy Park for $1.3 billion in a deal that its chief executive says will "position Pilgrim's to become a global player," reported Agrimoney. Moy Park claims a 25-percent share of the chicken market in western Europe.

Exports generate an important part of U.S. farm income, yet they are jeopardized by President Trump's decision to renegotiate NAFTA and his threats to cancel the U.S.-Korea trade pact, writes former agriculture secretary Dan Glickman in an essay in The Hill newspaper. "These two threats alone have serious potential implications for the health of American agriculture, which is so dependent on agriculture exports.

Under a program funded by the Bureau of Land Management (BLM), prisoners in six states are planting sagebrush, a plant native to Western grasslands that has been depleted by development and by ranchers' preference for other grasses that make better forage for livestock. Sagebrush provides valuable habitat for big-game and birds, while providing enough shade to keep moisture in the soil.

There are nearly twice as many kangaroos as people in Australia and the rapid rise in kangaroo population, up 66 percent this decade, is fanning a novel idea for the nation: Eat more kangaroo meat, reports the BBC. It could be a hard sell, since the kangaroo and the emu are on the national coat of arms, and the kangaroo is a popular symbol of the country.

A new analysis of data from a number of sources, by researchers at Smithsonian and the University of Michigan, found that biodiversity plays an even greater role in ecosystem resilience and overall health than previously thought—more important than even temperature and nutrients. The analysis was published in the journal Nature.

After courtroom victories in Utah and Idaho, "expect challenges in the Midwest to so-called 'ag gag' laws that criminalize certain forms of data collection and recording on farms and ranches," reports Harvest Public Media. University of Denver law professor Justin Marceau says, "Laws in states like Iowa and Kansas are crying out for a challenge at this point," adding that animal rights groups are preparing challenges in at least two states.

A comparison of food stamp benefits and federal dietary guidelines finds that the premiere U.S. antihunger program "only covers 43-60 percent of what it costs to consume ... a healthy diet," says North Carolina State University. "The study highlights the challenges lower-income households face in trying to eat a healthy diet."

An audit by the Interior Department's inspector general says the government improperly spent $84 million to help plan the mammoth twin-tunnel project to ship water to Southern California from northern parts of the state, reported The Associated Press. The audit said the expenditures meant the Bureau of Reclamation paid for one-third of the cost of project planning through 2016, when California water districts were supposed to bear the costs.

Sea salt from around the world is often contaminated with microplastics, according to several studies that examined sea salt in the UK, France, Spain, China and the U.S. “Researchers believe the majority of the contamination comes from microfibres and single-use plastics such as water bottles, items that comprise the majority of plastic waste,” says The Guardian, adding that the United Nations estimates that one garbage truck’s worth of plastic is dumped into the ocean every minute.

Chile has designated the world’s largest marine park — at 740,000 square kilometers, or about the size of the entire nation of Chile. Known as Rapa Nui, the park will safeguard at least 142 endemic marine species, including 27 facing extinction.

Hurricane Irma, which could become the costliest storm in U.S. history, is threatening $1.2 billion worth of agricultural production in Florida, the No. 2 produce grower in the country and “the top ... grower of fresh tomatoes, oranges, green beans, cucumbers, squash, and sugarcane,” says AgWeb.