Democrats' chances of defeating Senate Judiciary chair Charles Grassley, a longtime Agriculture Committee member, were never great and are fading like the shortening days of autumn, says Sabato's Crystal Ball. "With Trump now positioned as a slight favorite to win the Hawkeye State, there is no sign that Grassley is in any danger," says the political website, rating the race as "safe Republican."

With state-owned ChemChina prepared to take over Syngenta, one of the largest seed companies in the world, Senate Judiciary chairman Chuck Grassley wants to know if the Chinese company would invoke sovereign immunity against lawsuits in U.S. courts. "If they fail to answer my questions, it ought to raise a big red flag with our regulators checking the antitrust laws against the mergers," Grassley told reporters according to DTN.

Plant breeding company KWS, of Germany, has pledged $10,000 in a crowdfunding initiative to help maintain the world's largest corn and wheat germplasm bank, says the international research center that owns the bank. The "Save a Seed" drive was launched at the 50th anniversary celebration for the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT), based in Mexico.

The UN International Labor Organization estimates 3.5 million people around the world work in forced labor conditions in agriculture, including forestry and fishing, says Civil Eats in a story on slavery in the food chain. "This means that forced labor has played a role in the supply chains of many of the most popular food and drinks."

President Obama dissuaded his longest-serving cabinet member, Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack, from quitting in late 2015 by putting Vilsack in charge of the administration's efforts to stem heroin and prescription opioid abuse in rural America, says the Washington Post. Vilsack felt rural issues were ignored in Washington and, after seven years on the job, there was little left for him to accomplish at USDA.

The International Agency for Research on Cancer, which ignited a global debate by rating glyphosate as probably carcinogenic to humans, has advised experts not to release documents requested under U.S. public records laws, said Reuters. In a letter and an email, IARC says it is "the sole owner of such materials" and "IARC requests you and your institute not to release any (such) documents," reports the news agency.

In Gazi Bay, Kenya, a carbon-credit program is saving mangrove forests by encouraging fishermen to cash in instead of cutting down trees. As part of the Mikoko Pamoja (Mangroves Together) program, “[l]ocal people who are protecting and replanting mangroves are now selling 3,000 tonnes of carbon credits a year to international buyers, for about $5-$6 a tonne," says Reuters.

Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack announced $300 million in loans and grants to help small businesses switch to more energy efficient equipment and renewable energy sources such as solar panels. "Cutting energy waste is one of the fastest, easiest and cheapest ways to help families save money on their energy bills while reducing carbon pollution," said Vilsack.

The chairman of a House Agriculture subcommittee proposed a tax-deferred disaster savings account that farmers could tap during hard times without waiting for government assistance. Rep. Rick Crawford said the damaging rains in his home state of Arkansas last month show the merit of letting producers take disaster preparedness into their own hands.

Special agents from EPA's Criminal Investigation Division served federal search warrants on several locations in Cape Girardeau, Dunklin, New Madrid and Stoddard counties in southeastern Missouri, tied to complaints of crop damage from pesticide drift, said the Daily Dunklin Democrat. The EPA is investigating possible misuse of the herbicide dicamba.

The U.S. corn harvest is running four percentage points behind normal and the soybean harvest is three points behind the five-year average for late September, said USDA's Crop Progress report. Rainy weather slowed the pace of fieldwork and prompted fear of disease losses that would cut into the value of crops, which are forecast to be record-large.

Americans aren’t eating out like they used to, and restaurants are feeling the pain. According to Bloomberg, U.S. restaurant sales “grew in the second quarter at their slowest pace since 2009,” partially because customers find it too expensive to eat out. Restaurants have had to raise menu prices to keep up with higher minimum wages and other cost factors, while grocery prices have dropped for the last 10 months straight.

Hit hard by the worst drought in more than a decade, Northeast dairy and vegetable farmers are making difficult sacrifices. “Some private wells have dried up. Farmers face millions of dollars in lost crops, and federal agricultural officials have declared much of New Hampshire, Massachusetts and Connecticut a natural disaster area,” says The New York Times.

Since its first forecast of a record-large soybean crop, the first to top 4 billion bushels, the USDA has twice boosted its estimated size of the crop, now pegged at 4.269 billion bushels. Economist Darrel Good of U-Illinois says history suggests the estimate will keep climbing as the harvest progresses and production data become more precise.

The National Institutes of Health has given the International Agency for Research on Cancer more than $1.2 million so far this year, says Chairman Jason Chaffetz of the House Oversight Committee. In a letter to the NIH director, Chaffetz blasts the IARC, part of the World Health Organization, for "controversy, retractions and inconsistencies," using its rulings on glyphosate and red meat as examples.

With 700 million pounds of pesticide used every year, inventors are trying to create a new generation of pesticide-detectors, cheap enough for the public to afford, says Modern Farmer. One Belgian research team has developed a machine that can “smell” pesticides.

When California Gov. Jerry Brown signed the law that assures farmworkers of overtime pay for more than eight hours a day in the field, it was "good news for one group: Agriculture robotics startups," says AgFunderNews.

Some 1.4 million people in Haiti, the poorest nation in the Americas, require food assistance because of widespread damage by Hurricane Matthew to supplies and crops in large swaths of the country, according to a survey by UN and Haitian agencies. In Haiti's Department of Grande-Anse, "agriculture has been virtually wiped out," says the UN, and "losses of subsistence crops in the Department of Sud have been nearly total."