As the Trump administration settles into the White House, seven states are hoping for dramatic changes in the federal government's public-lands policy, reports E&E News, offering analysis of each state. Alaska, Colorado, Montana, New Mexico, North Dakota, Utah and Wyoming, which together contain 60 percent of U.S. public lands, are set to be battlegrounds for environmentalists, landowners, ranchers and oil companies.

The EPA failed to consult with the Interior Department over the risk to endangered species before approving use of the Monsanto weedkiller dicamba on GE cotton and soybeans, say four farm and environmental groups in a federal lawsuit. The groups want the U.S. appellate court in San Francisco to order the EPA to consider again if the herbicide merits approval.

President Donald Trump "has already started to work with Congress" for funding to build a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border, said White House press secretary Sean Spicer. At his first White House news briefing, Spicer listed immigration reform among four items for immediate congressional action while the administration gives first priority to deportation of undocumented immigrants with a criminal record or who pose a security risk.

The price of farmed Atlantic salmon is on the rise because of "one tiny, nefarious little creature," the sea louse, a parasitic crustacean about the size of an aspirin tablet that feeds on salmon, says Quartz. There were acute infestations in Scottish and Norwegian fish farms last year and Norwegian exports dropped 5 percent.

Market research company Mintel says sales of non-dairy milk grew 9 percent in 2015, while dairy milk sales fell 7 percent, the food industry news site Food Dive says. "The non-dairy segment started out as an alternative category catering to those with food allergies but it has since evolved beyond a trend."

New farm lending is down sharply by agricultural banks, plunging 40 percent during the closing three months of 2016 in the largest year-over-year decline for non-real-estate loans in nearly two decades, says a quarterly Federal Reserve report. "As the outlook for farm income generally has remained weak and farmland values have continued to decline, both lenders and borrowers may have been more apprehensive about adding new debt heading into 2017," said the report.

President Donald Trump plans to meet the leaders of Canada and Mexico soon "to start renegotiating on NAFTA, on immigration and on security at the border," reported Reuters. After China, the U.S. neighbors are the top markets for U.S. farm exports, forecast to buy 29 percent of ag exports and be the source of 44 percent of U.S. agricultural imports, so farm groups want to avoid adverse effects of reworked rules.

Roughly one-third of the U.S. road network, some 1.4 million miles, are "unpaved," meaning a gravel or dirt surface, according to a estimate by the Federal Highway Administration in 2012. The figure may be growing slowly because some counties and cities are converting paved roads to unpaved roads because of dwindling fuel-tax revenue, says Stateline.

The Trump administration has removed nearly all mention of climate change from the White House website, says Reuters, while publishing a call for increased energy development and fewer environmental regulations.

The Agriculture Department will unveil today its proposal to update its regulatory framework of biotechnology. The plan is designed to speed up development of GE plants that do not pose a plant pest or weed risk, and to cover plants created through genome-editing techniques, such as CRISPR, if they pose plant pest or noxious-weed risk. At present, GE plants produced without the use of genetic sequences from plant pests — the traditional method of genetic modification — are not subject to federal biotechnology rules.

Drought is depriving millions of Somalis of enough to eat, the nation's president said in an appeal for international aid. The Famine Early Warning Systems Network, created by the USAID, said famine is possible in Somalia, South Sudan and Yemen, all in East Africa. Armed conflict has aggravated the effects of drought.

The National Pork Producers Council, representing conventional agriculture, called on Congress and the incoming Trump administration to overturn a new USDA animal-welfare rule for organic farms, a small part of U.S. food production. House Agriculture Committee chairman Michael Conaway said he hoped Trump officials "will immediately withdraw this rule but stand ready with my colleagues on the Hill to roll back the regulation if necessary."

Researchers say fossil-fuel emissions will make the oceans more acidic in coming decades and drive down the population of the Dungeness crab, native to the north Pacific coast, by 30 percent, reports the Seattle Times. Federal fishery biologist Issac Kaplan, a co-author of the study, said the research points to "a moderate decline in a species that is really economically important."

Some 43.2 million people received food stamps in the latest count, equal to 13 percent of Americans, say USDA data that show enrollments dropped in nine of the last 12 months. The antihunger group Food Research and Action Council said participation fell by 2.15 million people in the 12 months ending last October, the most recent month available.

Eight of the 12 months of 2016 were the warmest since modern recordkeeping began in 1880, helping to make 2016 the warmest year globally — the third record-setting year in a row, said NASA. "We don't expect record years every year but the ongoing long-term warming trend is clear," said Gavin Schmidt, direct of NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies.

The Agriculture Department faces a vexing problem: Its crop reports can move markets but fewer and fewer farmers are taking part in the surveys that assure the USDA estimates are accurate. "From response rates of 80-85 percent in the early 1990s, rates have fallen below 60 percent in some cases," write USDA chief economist Robert Johansson and Mississippi State University economist Keith Coble.