Farm-state lawmakers could have a "quite large" baseline for crop subsidies, "even approaching $100 billion" over a decade, when they write the 2018 farm bill, says economist Carl Zulauf of Ohio State University. In a blog, Zulaug rebuts speculation, based on the decline in pay-out for the Agricultural Risk Coverage (ARC) subsidy, that the House and Senate Agriculture Committees could have a small amount of money available to confront an era of low commodity prices.

The world will spend $1.17 trillion on food imports, including freight costs, this year, the smallest figure since 2010 due to low prices for meat, dairy, and grains, said the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization.

At Berea College in eastern Kentucky, Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack announced that 26 community development organizations will be able to draw on $401 million in funding to reduce rural poverty through building or improving essential facilities and services such as education and health care.

If the world does not reduce its greenhouse gas emissions, the U.S. Southwest is almost guaranteed to suffer decades-long megadroughts by the end of this century, says Mashable, citing work by a group of U.S. researchers.

The Grocery Manufacturers Association says it will "vigorously pursue its options to correct" the record-setting $18 million fine levied on it by a Washington state judge for violating campaign finance laws in the 2013 state referendum on labeling GMO foods.

In California, a new law will limit prevent farmers from “banking” their use of the pesticide Telone and carrying over permits for its use from one year to the next, says The Los Angeles Times.

At least $93.4 million has been donated to candidates and political action committees in 2015 and 2016 by people, companies and groups in the agribusiness sector, says DTN in a perusal of campaign records compiled by the Center for Responsive Politics.

What you eat depends largely on where you live, despite the year-round cornucopia of food made available by international trade, says a team of biologists and economists.

The most partisan members of the Republican and Democratic parties — the people who vote in primary elections — cluster in different parts of the country. Democrats live in cities and Republicans in rural areas, says the Daily Yonder.

The American Beverage Association, a soda industry group, said it will suspend payments to health experts speaking against soda taxes on social media, said the Associated Press.

After 70 million years on earth, the fate of the pallid sturgeon depends on what officials decide to do about a a single dam, says High Country News. A prehistoric-looking fish with ghostly white skin, the species is down to fewer than 125 wild-born adults in Montana’s upper Missouri River Basin.

Whether it's paleo meal kits or pea-based condiments, some of the country’s leading food-tech entrepreneurs and investors shared their thoughts on the future of sustainable food at FERN Talk & Eats in Silicon Valley.

In exchange for working in rural areas with a shortage of veterinarians to treat food animals, 48 veterinarians will share in $4.3 million to retire part of their veterinary college loans, said USDA. The awards, made through a loan repayment program, will bring additional veterinarians to 27 states.

Four hundred of the biggest food companies in the U.S. and Europe have pledged not to buy from suppliers responsible for deforestation. But no one can say for sure whether their promises are actually protecting forests, according to a report from Climate Focus.

Two years after soaring to record highs, "hog prices have collapsed to levels far below break-even," says Purdue economist Chris Hurt. Hog farmers will lose an average $10 a head this year and $16 a head in 2017 because there are so many hogs being fed for slaughter, they could exceed the capacity of packing plants to handle them.

It could be capsulized as "Know Your Farmer, Know Your Steak." At the meat counter and online, retailers "are taking the local food craze to new heights," says the Wall Street Journal, by selling cuts of meat that can be traced to an individual animal on a specific farm. It's called "single origin" meat.

The electoral tussles over 1-cent-per-ounce soda taxes in San Francisco and Oakland are becoming two of the most expensive campaigns in California this year with more than $46 million in donations, says public broadcaster KQED. The American Beverage Association has spent $28.7 million in fighting the taxes, said KQED, noting the nationwide ramification of referendums.