"Faltering trust between trading partners on both sides of the border" may be slowing U.S. farm export to Mexico as the nations prepare to renegotiate NAFTA , says Farm Futures. It says that U.S. exports of corn, soybeans and chicken meat to Mexico declined during the first four months of this year, a period when the new Trump administration floated the idea of a border tax and when U.S.-Mexico relations soured.

The congressionally created Foundation for Food and Agriculture Research (FFAR) will put $10 million into a new global consortium whose goal is to accelerate crop breeding to meet the rising world demand for food, the eight-member consortium said in a kick-off announcement. FFAR said its contribution "is expected to leverage significant investment from partners."

Two new farm-based studies have provided some of the most compelling evidence to date that neonicotinoid pesticides are harmful to domestic and wild bees.The first study, paid for in part by $3 million from Syngenta and Bayer and published in the journal Science, “took place at 33 large farmland sites spread across the UK, Germany and Hungary.

Drought is intensifying in the northern Plains and a quarter of North Dakota, a cattle and wheat state, suffers extreme drought, according to the weekly Drought Monitor. With hot and dry weather expected to continue, USDA vastly expanded the region where ranchers can graze livestock on Conservation Reserve land, normally out of bounds.

The Senate Agriculture Committee voted, 16-5, to clear for a floor vote the nomination of CFTC commissioner Christopher Giancarlo to become chairman of the agency that oversees the derivatives markets. President Trump, who named Giancarlo as acting chairman on the day he took office, is halfway through submitting nominations for the four other commissioners.

Dale McCall is a fourth-generation farmer with a sprawling field where he grows alfalfa, hay, and sunflowers near Yuma, Colorado. The 70-year-old also works part-time in the area’s school district; one of the job’s benefits is decent health care coverage, despite his pre-existing conditions. But now, as the Republican American Health Care Act moves forward, the situation for McCall and his family could change drastically. (No Paywall)

U.S. farmers and ranchers, among President Trump's strongest supporters, are “at a disadvantage” because Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue is running the USDA by himself, said 17 powerhouse farm groups in a letter to the president. It was one of the first expressions of discontent with the administration from the politically conservative farm sector.

Connecticut Rep. Rosa DeLauro, a sponsor of a bill to prohibit “lunch shaming” at public schools, is taking a second legislative avenue toward federal action: a directive for the USDA to issue national standards on how schools should handle school-lunch debts.

With 13 months left to write final rules on the disclosure of GMO ingredients in food, the USDA posted 30 questions on its website about possible contents of the rule. It is allowing 19 days, until July 17, for public comment.

Nearly three weeks into a jury trial, ABC News and Beef Products Inc. reached a settlement on the meat processor’s suit seeking $1.9 billion in damages for reporting that referred to its “lean finely textured beef,” made from beef trimmings, as “pink slime.”

With House Republicans bogged down in budget discussions, the conservative group Heritage Action accused Agriculture Committee chairman Michael Conaway of being unwilling “to cut a paltry amount of federal spending from his committee.” A spokeswoman for Conaway called the criticism part of “Heritage Action’s long-running campaign against America’s farmers and ranchers.”

The EPA and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers are moving to rescind the 2015 Clean Water Rule, which clarifies which waters are federally protected from pollution under the original 1972 Clean Water Act. A statement from the agencies calls the rule, known as Waters of the United States, or WOTUS, an example of federal overreach.

Farm groups were among the first to testify at three days of hearings called by the Trump administration as it decides how to modify the North American Free Trade Agreement. Agriculture has been an overall winner under NAFTA.

Already more than a decade in the planning, California’s proposal to build two massive tunnels stretching 35 miles beneath the Sacramento River delta has received an important green light from federal wildlife experts.

Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue will celebrate the reopening of the Chinese market to U.S. beef on Friday at the same time the Trump administration is considering trade action against Beijing. The first shipment of U.S. beef arrived in China on June 19 following a 13-year absence from that market.

The first internal dispute of the Macron administration showcased the contrasting views of France’s agriculture and environment ministers over a law that bans the use of neonicotinoid insecticides starting in 2018.

House Democrats are targeting often-conservative rural districts in their drive to gain control of the House in the 2018 midterms, and the DCCC has named Rep. Cheri Bustos of Illinois to lead the effort.