California farms are becoming the testing ground for the argument that wages and job prospects for American workers will improve when undocumented immigrants are not available. "So far, the results aren't encouraging for farmers or domestic workers," says the Los Angeles Times, despite offers of higher pay.

The 2017 Alaska salmon catch could be twice as much as last year’s, with projections of 204 million fish compared 122 million in 2016, says Alaska Dispatch News. “The total dockside value of the 2016 salmon fishery barely topped $406 million, the lowest in 14 years,” says ADN.

An assistant professor at the University of British Columbia says her research shows that the great majority of people who played outside as children are interested in environmental issues as adults. "Developing positive experiences in nature at a young age can influence our attitudes and behaviors towards nature as adults," says researcher Catherine Broom in a UBC release.

Some 17 million people in Yemen, 60 percent of the population, "are now facing hunger," due to armed conflict and a rapid rise in food insecurity since last summer, said the UN Food and Agriculture Organization. "Without additional humanitarian and livelihoods support, Taiz and Al Hudaydah, two governorates accounting for almost a quarter of Yemen's population, risk slipping into famine."

With a letter to President Trump, two dozen senators, mainly from the Midwest, stepped into a dispute that recently fractured the unity of ethanol trade groups. Spearheaded by Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar and Iowa Sen. Chuck Grassley, the letter asks the president to keep petroleum refiners responsible for compliance with the Renewable Fuels Standard, which requires use of biofuels in the gasoline supply.

The USDA confirmed the second case of highly pathogenic avian influenza in southern Tennessee since March 4, in a 55,000-bird broiler-breeder flock less than two miles from the first outbreak in Lincoln County. "Depopulation has begun," a standard step to prevent spread of the bird flu virus that can wipe out an infected flock in two days, said USDA.

The USDA says it will mail survey forms at the end of this year for its Census of Agriculture, conducted every five years. The census is "the only source of uniform, comprehensive and impartial agriculture data for every county in the nation," said administrator Hubert Hamer of the National Agricultural Statistics Service, which conducts the census.

A key EPA official who played a role in deciding the government’s cancer designation on Roundup, Monsanto’s weedkiller, was routinely communicating with company officials, according to federal court documents unsealed Tuesday. The official reportedly told the company that he could kill another agency’s investigation into glyphosate, the active ingredient in Roundup.

A San Francisco Bay-area food technology company served its test-tube chicken strips, grown from self-reproducing cells, to a handful of taste-testers, says the Wall Street Journal, "and the product tasted pretty much like chicken, according to people who were offered samples." The debut of Memphis Meat was the latest advance of "clean meat."

President Trump will soon cancel the Obama-era policy that demanded federal agencies account for the “social cost of carbon” when drafting new regulations, says Reuters. Under Obama, agency officials had to quantify the economic damage of an activity, like coal mining or oil drilling, based on its contribution to climate change.

California state Sen. Bob Wieckowski has introduced a bill to require warning labels on food containing synthetic food dyes, including food sold in restaurants, says Civil Eats. If he succeeds, it would be the first such labeling law in the nation.

An ethanol industry trade group says President Trump's decision to review fuel economy standards for automobiles set by his predecessor could mean a larger role for "high octane, low carbon fuels" such as renewable fuels. Trump announced "the big news that we're going to work on the CAFE (corporate average fuel economy) standards, so you can make cars in America again" during a speech in Detroit.

The continuing slump in the farm economy and shortcomings in the U.S. farm program make it imperative for Congress to provide additional funding for the 2018 farm bill, said a powerhouse bloc of farm groups. Their appeal to congressional budget and appropriations leaders came two weeks after the House Agriculture Committee asked for more money so it could plug holes in the farm safety net.

After tests suggested bird flu in a poultry flock in northern Alabama, the poultry breeding company Aviagen culled the flock and removed from its production line eggs that originated from the farm, says Reuters. The flock was one of three potential outbreaks of bird flu and followed discoveries across the state line in Tennessee a week earlier.

The University of Nebraska's annual Farm Real Estate Survey says the average value of farmland in the state fell by 10 percent in the past year, to $2,805 an acre. It was the third year of declines since land peaked at an average $3,315 an acre, an overall drop of 15 percent.

The Alabama state veterinarian issued a "stop movement" order affecting poultry because of three suspected cases of bird flu in northern counties that border Tennessee, said the state Department of Agriculture and Industries. The incidents follow the confirmation of highly pathogenic avian influenza on a broiler-breeder farm in southern Tennessee last week.