Farm subsidy programs have little impact on food consumption, food security or nutrition of the poor in the United States, say three economists in a paper written for the American Enterprise Institute, which promotes the free-enterprise system. "When filtered through the food chain, their impacts on retail prices and food consumption are surely tiny," the paper said.

After food shortages turned to street violence, Venezuelan president Nicolas Maduro gave control of the country’s food supply to the military. Now soldiers are making money off of the hungry, the AP says.

The government is giving away too many meals in the school-lunch program, according to Texas Agriculture Commissioner Sid Miller in a McClatchy story. An aspirant for U.S. agriculture secretary, Miller said he discussed with President-elect Donald Trump's team a plan to save "several billion dollars" by reforming the lunch program, which was created in 1946 "as a measure of national security, to safeguard the the health and well-being of the nation's children."

Prosecutors in the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge investigation in Oregon are calling on a judge to order blogger Gary Hunt to remove sensitive material about the trial’s informants from his website Outpost of Freedom.

Ralph Lauren Corp. joins a growing number of fashion companies that have pledged to not use products derived from cleared forests or that required grabbing land from indigenous people, says Reuters. The company says it has new plans to track its sourcing and avoid parts of the world that practice extreme deforestation and human rights abuses.

Bioenergy crops such as switchgrass are highlighted as a potential alternative source of farm income but there is no market for them at present. USDA economists say 25-29 million acres of cropland, equal to half the area planted to wheat annually, would be needed for a bioenergy crops that would be generate as much electricity as hydropower. That's around 6 percent of U.S. production, if there was a federal bio-electricity policy.

The U.S. attorney's office in Oklahoma City confirmed an investigation is under way in the alleged embezzlement of $2.6 million from the Oklahoma Beef Council, which uses checkoff funds from rancher and feedlot operators to promote beef, says Harvest Public Media. The beef council filed suit last fall to recover the money from a former employee but few details have been made available.

The giant sequoia known as the Pioneer Cabin and famed for the tunnel cut through its base in the 1880s fell during the powerful winter storm that dumped rain and snow on California, says the Los Angeles Times.

The Laura and John Arnold Foundation donated $500,000 to the city of Philadelphia to fight the beverage industry, which sued after voters passed a soda tax last November, says Philadelphia Business Journal.

In Oregon, the self-proclaimed grass-seed capital of the world, a strain of genetically modified grass, developed by Scotts Miracle-Gro, has jumped the Snake River from test beds in Idaho and poses a risk to the $1-billion-a-year grass-seed industry, says the Portland Oregonian. Some growers and dealers "fear it's only a matter of time before the altered seed reaches the Willamette Valley, the heart of Oregon's grass business," a potential catastrophe.

With President-elect Donald Trump figuratively looking over his shoulder, Scott Pruitt assured Farm Belt senators that he will support the Renewable Fuels Standard, which guarantees biofuels a share of the gasoline market, if he is confirmed as EPA administrator. Pruitt is state attorney general in Oklahoma, an oil-producing state, which raised questions about whether he would enforce the biofuels mandate.

University of California researchers are using the U.S. network of weather radar stations to track wild fowl that could carry the bird flu virus, says UC Food Observer. Veterinarian Tod Kelman, a co-leader of the project, said that by tracking flocks as they travel, "we hope to gain novel strategic insights with respect to surveillance and prevention of avian influenza transmission to domestic poultry."

Democrats narrowed the Republican majority in the Senate in the November elections, so the Agriculture Committee will have 11 Republicans this session, unchanged from last year, and 10 Democrats, an increase of one. The committee has three newcomers: Republicans Steve Daines of Montana and Jeff Sessions of Alabama, and Democrat Chris Van Hollen of Maryland. Sessions is expected to leave the committee as soon as he is confirmed as attorney general.

One of the largest family-owned wineries in the United States, Jackson Family Wines, is facing climate change head-on, even as experts predict falling grape yields because of shifting weather patterns, says The New York Times. The makers of Kendall-Jackson chardonnay, a “supermarket staple,” the Jackson clan has deployed high-tech water-efficiency programs, drones and old-school falcons to manage pests in the wake of California’s drought and higher temperatures.

Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack says purchase of groceries over the internet is "a potential lifeline" for food-stamp recipients who live in areas with poor access to healthy foods. The USDA will begin a two-year test of the idea this summer with the help of seven retailers, ranging from e-commerce giant Amazon to Hart's Local Grocers in Rochester, NY.

Former New Jersey Gov. Jon Corzine will pay a $5 million civil penalty for misuse of $1 billion in customers' funds during the 2011 collapse of MF Global, which shook the futures market. Corzine, who was chief executive of the trading house, also agreed in a consent order in federal court to never again work for a futures brokerage or to register with the CFTC.