A veteran consumer advocate and public health official, Dr. Peter Lurie, a physician by training, is the new executive director and president of the consumer group Center for Science in the Public Interest. Lurie will succeed Michael Jacobson, a co-founder of CSPI in 1971, said the watchdog group, which is suing the FDA over its delay of menu labeling.

Brandon Lipps, who helped engineer $8.6 billion in food stamp cuts in the 2014 farm law, is the new administrator of USDA's Food and Nutrition Service, which oversees food stamps, school lunch and other public nutrition programs. Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue announced the appointment of Lipps and two senior nutrition officials a day ahead of a trip, scheduled for today, to a summer meal site for school-aged children.

Drought in the Horn of Africa has killed the livestock of nomadic herders and forced thousands of pastoralists into refugee camps, dependent on food aid. Authorities in Ethiopia, while dealing with the crisis, are looking into longer-term adaptations, such as introducing irrigated agriculture and small farms in the country's Somali region, "a land long known for just herding animals," says the Washington Post.

"Nothing runs like a Deere," according to an old tagline for the world's largest farm equipment maker, and nothing lends like a Deere, either, says the Wall Street Journal. The company, which lends billions of dollars to farmers who buy its equipment, "is providing more short-term credit for crop supplies such as seeds, chemicals and fertilizer, making it the No. 5 agricultural lender."

An 11-year-old cow, intercepted at a livestock market in Alabama, is the fifth U.S. case of mad cow disease, the brain-wasting fatal disease found generally in older cattle, said the USDA. "This finding ... should not lead to any trade issues," said USDA's Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service, because it was the "atypical" type that seems to occur spontaneously.

To avoid "extended dependency," the Republican majority on the House Budget Committee would require food stamp recipients to work at least 80 hours a month or spend an equal amount of time in job training or workfare if they are able-bodied adults without dependents (ABAWDs). The GOP's budget package, scheduled for a vote today in committee, also would give states the power to run program as they wish.

The insurance-like cotton subsidy program of the 2014 farm law is a failure, U.S. lawmakers, lenders and cotton groups said in four coordinated letters to President Trump. They asked him to keep in operation the cotton ginning cost-share program created as a one-time, $300 million payment last year. In a show of support, letters were sent by 109 representatives, 26 senators, 82 cotton groups and 1,600 lenders and rural businesses.

Although the EPA dragged its feet for a decade on whether to ban the insecticide chlorpyrifos, "it has now done what we ordered it to do" and made a decision, said the federal appellate court in San Francisco. For that reason, the Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals refused to consider a lawsuit by two environmental groups contesting EPA administrator Scott Pruitt's decision to keep the chemical, criticized as a risk to children and farm workers, available for use in agriculture.

Almost half of farmers (45 percent) said they worried they would have to sell off land or other farm assets in order to pay for healthcare-related costs, according to a survey of 1,062 farmers across the country by the University of Vermont.

Governments are likely underestimating the risks of climate change to agriculture, especially in the event of simultaneous extreme weather events in key areas, say researchers from the U.K.’s Met office. Using 1,400 climate model simulations, the researchers discovered that the probability of severe drought was greater than if judged solely from observations.

China, the top customer for U.S. farm exports, is delivering on a promise to speed up review of import applications, part of the two nations' 100-day timetable for resolving trade issues. Its Agriculture Ministry approved import of an insect-resistant GMO corn strain by Syngenta and a glyphosate-tolerant GMO corn variety by Monsanto, the second time in a month that U.S. biotech strains have been cleared for import, said Reuters.

On his sixth day on the job, Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue, in the name of regulatory flexibility and making school meals more attractive to students, gave schools the green light to serve chocolate milk again. A new study suggests, however, that over time, schoolchildren do not miss flavored milk all that much.

President Trump selected Steve Censky of the American Soybean Association to be deputy agriculture secretary, announced the White House in a decision applauded by farm groups. Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue has put agricultural trade at the top of his agenda, and Censky would reflect that priority.

More than 500 people from the U.S. to Thailand have sent their sourdough bread starters to be analyzed by microbiologist as part of the Sourdough Project, led by biologist Rob Dunn at North Carolina State University. “The project is trying to answer many questions,” says NPR. “How does a starter's microbial ecosystem vary with different flours? How does a new starter compare with one that's 200 years old, filled with tradition and lore? Do they change with geography, as some claim? And, of course, how can you bake a more delicious loaf?”