On the rise for the third month in a row, the Food Price Index is now the highest since January 2015, says the UN Food and Agriculture Organization. The latest increase in the index is due to higher prices for cereal grains, sugar and dairy. In early 2015, prices were declining from the peak in 2011, when drought affected global food supplies. 

The Interior Department's Office of Inspector General is undertaking a preliminary investigation into phone calls made by Secretary Ryan Zinke to Alaska’s Republican Sens. Lisa Murkowski and Dan Sullivan, warning them that that they could lose their standing with the Trump administration in light of Murkowski’s vote against repealing the Affordable Care Act.

In a transaction that was 25 years in the making, U.S.-based AquaBounty Technologies announced the sale of 10,000 pounds of its GMO salmon to customers in Canada, meaning "genetically engineered salmon has reached the dinner plate," says the journal Nature. "This is the first time that a genetically engineered animal has been sold for food on the open market."

The "overwhelming majority of farmers are experiencing tremendous success" with the new, less-volatile formulation of the weedkiller dicamba, says Monsanto's chief technology officer Robb Fraley in an open letter to farmers, inviting them to call with complaints of damage from the herbicide.

The world's largest meat company, JBS, entwined in a corruption scandal in its home country of Brazil, hired as its global food security Al Almanza, who just retired as head of USDA's Food Safety and Inspection Service. The Organization for Competitive Markets, which focuses on agricultural antitrust issues, called the hiring "the latest of the scandalous job swapping between government and the meat industry."

The Republican-controlled Senate put President Trump's stamp on the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, which oversees the futures markets, by approving his choice for CFTC chairman and two of his nominees for the five-member board. The nominations were approved by unanimous consent and give the CFTC board a majority for the first time in months.

As part his review of two dozen national monuments, Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke says he will recommend no change in 378,000-acre Upper Missouri River Breaks monument in central Montana. Zinke is under orders from President Trump to report by Labor Day whether the government should scale back the boundaries of national monuments designated since 1995 and covering more than 100,000 acres; Bears Ears in southeastern Utah was singled out for special attention by Trump.

In a lengthy report, the St. Louis Federal Reserve Bank identifies regional food systems as "a promising avenue for economic growth for both rural and urban communities through the creation or enhancement of existing jobs and businesses."

Marine scientists estimate the low-oxygen "dead zone" in the Gulf of Mexico covers a record 8,776 square miles, or one-seventh of the basin. "This large dead zone size shows that nutrient pollution, primarily from agriculture and developed land runoff in the Mississippi River watershed, is continuing to affect the nation’s coastal resources and habitats in the Gulf," said NOAA.

More women are joining Maine’s lobster fleet, breaking down the old stereotype that women are just the fisherman’s wife. Last year, women held 434 of the state's 5,500-plus lobster licenses, hauling in a catch so physically demanding it has long been considered man's work, says NPR.

The federal mandate to mix corn ethanol into gasoline has plateaued at 15 billion gallons a year, so ethanol distillers are looking for other markets and throttling back on production, says Reuters. Three companies — ethanol industry leader Archer-Daniels-Midland, Green Plains Inc. and Pacific Ethanol — are turning to industrial and beverage alcohol production, an avenue open to them because ethanol is grain alcohol.

On a voice vote during a brief meeting in the Capitol, the Senate Agriculture Committee approved the nominations of Rostin Behnam, Brian Quintenz and Dawn Stump for commissioners of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, the watchdog agency for the derivatives market. If confirmed by the Senate, the nominations would restore the CFTC to nearly its full complement of five commissioners.

President Trump’s nominee for USDA chief scientist described black leaders as “race traders” and called President Obama a “Maoist” in blogs produced a few years ago in conjunction with a radio talk show aimed at conservatives, said CNN. Clovis was co-chair of Trump’s presidential campaign, Trump’s liaison with farm groups and, since January, the White House’s chief political operative at USDA.

Rep. Earl Blumenauer of Oregen easily qualifies as a farm bill outsider – he's part of the minority party in the U.S. House, represents the Portland area and is not a member of the Agriculture Committee. All the same, Blumenauer says he will soon file a farm bill that reins in excessive spending on crop subsidies and strengthens public nutrition programs.

Three days after canceling participation in a farm bill "listening session" called by the the House Agriculture Committee in Texas, Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue will launch a Midwestern "Back to Our Roots" tour of five Midwestern states to gather ideas for the 2108 farm bill and rural prosperity. The five-state tour has seven sessions with farmers and one, a visit to a Milwaukee-area farm that donates food to the poor, that deals with hunger in America.

In the latest court ruling in a 20-year tussle over gray wolves in Michigan, Minnesota and Wisconsin, the U.S. Appeals Court for the DC Circuit put the predator back on the endangered species list, says MLive Media Group. The Interior Department delisted the Great Lakes wolves in 2011, saying the wolf population had recovered enough that federal protection was no longer needed and states could take over management of the animals.

A mandated interstate "pollution diet" intended to reduce nutrient runoff into the Chesapeake Bay is paying off, while voluntary measures to reduce nitrogen levels in Mississippi River have failed, writes a University of Michigan professor at the site The Conversation. "From my perspective, when we compare these two approaches it is clear that voluntary measures are not even making modest dents in nutrient pollution," says professor Donald Scavia, who has worked on the issue of "dead zones" for four decades.