As the avocado market struggles in California, niche growers on the southern coast are switching to an unexpected crop: coffee. “[T]hey are eyeing machinery that can harvest the beans, which would reduce labor costs, as well as a contraption called a demucilager that mechanically strips coffee berry skin and pulp off the beans, rather than using water to clean them,” says The New York Times.

The Trump administration proposed a $700-million reduction in funding to fight wildfires, but Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue told a House panel that he will press the White House for more money, said Roll Call. At a House Appropriations subcommittee hearing, Perdue said he would "advocate very strongly" for additional funding to prevent and manage fires.

A jury ruled that two former stars of the strawberry breeding program at UC-Davis violated an agreement with the university over control of the plants they developed while at the school.

The United States is headed for its fifth year in a row of lower-than-normal food inflation, with prices forecast to rise by a marginal 0.5 percent this year.

Sharply higher sales of soybean, cotton, and livestock products are leading a rebound in U.S. farm exports this year, said the USDA. With four months left in the fiscal year, it estimated exports at $137 billion, up nearly 6 percent from 2016 and reversing two years of declining sales.

The world’s grain stockpile will shrink nearly 7 percent by the end of the new marketing year, forecasts the International Grains Council. The reason, said the group, is a smaller harvest—down 3 percent—and the second year of record-high consumption.

Thirty members of the U.S. House of Representatives—all Democrats—introduced a bill to give legal status to undocumented immigrants working in U.S. agriculture and to their families as well.

For the second time in a week, Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue told lawmakers that government is a greater threat to U.S. farmers than drought or disease. And in nearly the same words at two House hearings, he offered the might of the U.S. government to boost farm income through larger food and ag exports.

A two-year, multi-state study, paid for by soybean check-off funds, found no yield benefit from planting soybean seeds coated with a neonicotinoid insecticide compared to untreated seeds. The study was a joint effort of seven universities in the Plains and Midwest and concluded that, as far as expenses and pest control were concerned, farmers were better off to scout their fields and apply insecticides as needed.

The 8,000 free bananas that Amazon hands out every day are disrupting the banana business for local vendors. “The brainchild of CEO Jeff Bezos, there are now two stands on its corporate campus staffed with ‘banistas’ led by ‘bananagers’ who give out bananas to anyone and everyone nearby, whether that’s one banana for breakfast or a dozen,” says Consumerist.com.

Marc Sadler, an advisor to the World Bank on agriculture risk and markets, told an Agrimoney conference that global agriculture needs "transformational change" to meet rising demand for food at the same time there is concern about controlling greenhouse gas emissions. Agriculture is a major source of the gases.

Sport fishermen, angry over strict limits to the recreational red-snapper catch, are organizing protests along the Gulf of Mexico for June 4. The anglers say the three-day recreational snapper season set by the federal government is cripplingly short and the source of lost business for local marinas and tackle shops.

With the release of the 2018 White House Budget proposal, environmentalists and public lands advocates are worried over a $1.4 billion (10.9 percent) cut to the Interior Department. The proposal targets federal lands, opens oil drilling in Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR), and cancels money set aside to bring economic opportunities to Appalachia — often in the form of farming ventures.

The former head of EPA's cancer assessment review committee, Jess Rowlands, advised European counterparts to disregard a study that linked cancer in mice to glyphosate, the most widely used weedkiller in the world, said The Guardian. It said court documents show that Rowlands "had previously told Monsanto he would try to block a U.S. inquiry into the issue."

A bill in the Vermont Senate calls for a statewide soil regeneration program, with regular soil testing to certify that farms are improving the health of their soil through carbon content and depth of topsoil. The bill is part of a sweep of similar legislation in California, Oklahoma and Utah.

For the third time, Indonesia has extended its moratorium on issuing licenses to clear forests and peat land, says Reuters. The nation's environment and forestry minister told the news agency the extension will run for two years and allow officials time to develop regulations on forest use.