The avowed watchdog group Public Citizen says in letters to the U.S Senate and House that businessman Carl Icahn, a special adviser to the White House, may have violated federal lobbying laws when he tried to change the Renewable Fuels Standard, reports DTN. Icahn says the group is inciting a "witch hunt" against him.

More than a quarter of respondents to an Agrimoney survey say trade issues, such as introduction of tariffs or disintegration of trade pacts, are "the biggest concern for world agribusiness investors," says the London-based news site. But President Trump won mention by 20 percent of respondents, including one who called him "the elephant in every room, including on ag."

A six-year study of grain crops in the Pacific Northwest says climate change is likely to boost dryland wheat by speeding the hardy crop toward maturity, reports Capital Press. Meanwhile, the journal Science says researchers credit 27 percent of the increase in corn yields over the past three decades to gains in the amount of sunlight that reached farm fields, possibly related to pollution controls.

The number of undocumented immigrants crossing the U.S.-Mexico border has dropped 40 percent since President Trump took office. “About 840 people a day were caught trying to cross the border or deemed inadmissible after presenting themselves at a port of entry in February, down from about 1,370 a day in January, according to new figures released by U.S. Customs and Border Protection,” says the LA Times.

On a 51-48 party-line vote, senators passed a resolution to revoke an Obama administration regulation intended to give the public more input into land management decisions by the Bureau of Land Management. The Republican majority said the rule, which covered 245 million acres of federal land under BLM control, gave outsiders too large a voice and diluted local input over decisions on how to use use land for grazing, recreation and energy and mineral development, said Reuters.

House Natural Resources Committee Chairman Rob Bishop has put in a budget request to allocate $50 million to pay for costs related to transferring federal land to states, says The Hill. One of the loudest voices in the land transfer movement, the Republican senator from Utah Senator argued in his request that “poorly managed federal lands create a burden for surrounding states and communities.”

During an interview on CNBC's "Squawk Box" program, EPA administrator Scott Pruitt said: "No, I would not agree that it (carbon dioxide) is a primary contributor to global warming." The statement was at odds with U.S. scientific agencies, who say the planet's average surface temperature is 2 degrees F higher than in the late 1800s and due largely to increased emissions of carbon dioxide and other human-caused emissions.

The world needs a comprehensive and binding treaty to phase out the use of highly dangerous pesticides and to promote agroecology, which replaces chemicals with biology, as the sustainable method of food production, two UN experts recommended in a report to the UN Human Rights Council. "The assertion promoted by the agrochemical industry that pesticides are necessary to achieve food security is not only inaccurate but dangerously misleading," says the report.

The 2018 farm bill should guarantee payments to farmers "to reduce acreage when prices fall below the cost of production," says the second-largest U.S. farm group, the National Farmers Union. At the NFU's annual meeting in San Diego, 136 delegates from 33 states approved a special order for a farm bill to help farmers and ranchers that responds to the dramatic reduction in commodity and livestock prices since 2013.

Greenpeace claims that several members on the European Chemical Agency (ECHA), set to decide today whether to grant the controversial pesticide glyphosate another 15-year license to be sold in the EU, have a conflict of interest, says The Independent.

Producers are worried about economic conditions in the farm sector and forecasts of a continued slump in farm income are eroding their confidence about the future, say Purdue University economists. The Purdue Ag Economy Barometer fell by 19 points during February, taking some air out of the "Trump bump" in farmer confidence that began in November and lifted producer sentiment to a record high in January.

Under development for decades as an erosion-preventing perennial crop, Kernza, "a sweet, nutty-tasting new grain," is getting a big boost from General Mills, which intends to commercialize the drought-resistant crop, says the Associated Press. Kernza could appear in cereals and snack foods as early as next year, according to the foodmaker, which encourages other companies to help create a market for the food grain.

After waiting for nearly 10 months for EPA to reply to its public-records request, the consumer group U.S. Right to Know filed suit in federal court for access to agency documents involved in deciding the cancer risk of glyphosate, the most widely used weedkiller in the world. The WHO cancer agency determined the herbicide is "probably carcinogenic to humans" in 2015 but an EPA review committee in 2016 decided glyphosate is "not likely to be carcinogenic to humans" at doses relevant to human health risk assessment.

Federal scientists say Oklahoma and southern Kansas face significant risk of earthquakes this year – "so high that the chance of damage ... is expected to be similar to that of earthquakes in California," said the Los Angeles Times. Since 2009, the number of earthquakes above magnitude 2.7 has soared, perhaps related to injection of wastewater deep underground, a method known as hydraulic fracturing, as part of oil and gas production.

EPA chief Scott Pruitt, who gives little credence to man-made climate change, is packing his agency with other climate skeptics, says The New York Times. “Mr. Pruitt has drawn heavily from the staff of his friend and fellow Oklahoma Republican, Senator James Inhofe, long known as Congress’s most prominent skeptic of climate science,” says the Times.