As many as 28 million people would be pushed into poverty and global livestock production could fall by up to 7.5 percent if resistant bacteria overwhelm the healing powers of antibiotics, says the World Bank. The economic impact would be "similar to — and likely worse than — that caused by the 2008 financial crisis," but without hope of a recovery, says the Bank.

Six U.S. farm groups challenged Dannon USA's pledge to switch to non-GMO ingredients in its yogurt as "the exact opposite of the sustainable agriculture you claim to the seeking." The chairman of the National Milk Producers Federation, Randy Mooney, said, "This is just marketing puffery, not any true innovation that improves the actual product offered to consumers."

The seed and ag-chemical industry "is seemingly on the precipice of a significant structural transformation," says Senate Judiciary chairman Charles Grassley in remarks written for today's hearing on consolidation in the sector. Five of the "big six" companies are involved in mergers while two Canadian companies are combining to form the world's largest fertilizer company.

Two USDA programs that share the cost of developing markets overseas for U.S. farm exports have a return on investment of 28 to 1, says a study by Informa Economics and released by U.S. Wheat Associates. The study said the Market Access Program (MAP) and the Foreign Market Development (FMD) program boosted farm export revenue by $8.2 billion annually from 1977-2014.

The leading contender for Interior secretary if Republican Donald Trump becomes president is Forrest Lucas of Indiana, the founder of Lucas Oil, says Politico, citing two sources familiar with the campaign's deliberations. Lucas is a long-time opponent of biofuels and a founder of a group that challenges animal-rights organizations.

Sundrop Farm, a 20-hectare site near Port Augusta in the South Australian desert, is "the first agricultural system of its kind in the world and uses no soil, pesticides, fossil fuels or groundwater," says New Scientist. The farm runs on solar-generated electricity and desalinates seawater that is piped 5.5 km to the farm, which the news site says "might be the face of farming in the future."

France is now the first country in the world to ban plastic cups, plates and utensils, says the Washington Post. The countrywide rule will go into effect in 2020. "The new law is a part of the country’s Energy Transition for Green Growth Act, the same legislation that also outlawed plastic bags in grocery stores and markets beginning in July."

In Mount St. Joseph, in western Kentucky, "there is trouble in the air and it comes along with the smell of a large hog farm," says Ohio Valley ReSource, a public broadcasting project in the Ohio River Valley. A community group says Piggy Express, a recently constructed washing facility for trucks that haul hogs, might produce polluted runoff, but they have little recourse because of the Kentucky's right-to-farm law.

In Nevada, the nation’s driest state, a five-year drought has emptied lakes and stalled rivers. Reservoir levels have plummeted and Lake Mead, the primary water source for Las Vegas, is at its lowest point since the Hoover Dam was constructed in the 1930s — just 1,073 feet above sea level. But while the entire state is struggling with the lack of water, perhaps those suffering the most are Native American tribes, says National Geographic.

A variety of USDA programs will be tapped to provide $328 million in technical and financial assistance to improve water quality and restore coastal ecosystems over three years on agricultural land in the Gulf of Mexico area, said USDA. The strategy calls for conservation improvements on 3.2 million acres of high-priority land in 200 counties and parishes.

The man that would lead the agriculture division created by the merger of U.S. giants Dow and DuPont says the companies expect to close the merger by the end of this year despite ongoing antitrust reviews, said DTN.

The EPA says its scientific advisory committee will meet later this year after it finds additional epidemiologists to serve on the panel during its review of glyphosate, the most widely used weedkiller in the world. The panel was scheduled to meet this week to assess the carcinogenic potential, if any, of the herbicide.

Rural America is in better economic shape than the Census Bureau said in its annual report on income and poverty, says the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. The think tank says rural and urban America enjoyed a decline in poverty and a rise in household incomes during 2015, according to a Census report issued two days after the bureau painted a picture of diverging conditions.

Without concerted action, millions of people "could fall into poverty and hunger," said UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon in a message marking World Food Day. "To bolster food security in a changing climate, countries must address food and agriculture in their climate action plans and invest more in rural development."

Fourteen months ago, the Obama administration launched the first comprehensive review in 30 years of the roles of the USDA, the EPA and the FDA in regulating biotechnology. In a follow-up, the White House released a proposed update to the Coordinated Framework for the Regulation of Biotechnology — the division of labor among regulators, first issued in 1986 — and a national strategy for modernizing biotechnology regulations.

The huge difference in the way urbanites and rural residents view government and society is the "San Andreas fault" of American politics, says the Daily Yonder in summarizing a study by two University of Virginia researchers. Rural Americans are twice as likely to feel left behind as urban residents, with the highest levels of disaffection found among males, Baby Boomers and those in the least populated parts of the country.

A new program called the Global Fishing Watch lets anyone track the world's 35,000 largest fishing vessels using a free online map, says Vox. The program, which relies on Google software, was created by Oceana and the nonprofit SkyTruth in the hopes of curbing overfishing and illegal harvests.

Just like the operators of large-scale plantations, small-scale farmers in Southeast Asia chop down rain forests to plant oil palm trees, says a study led by a researcher from Lund University in Sweden. “For the great majority of small farmers, chopping down diverse forests and investing in a single species of tree – monoculture – is the simplest and quickest path out of poverty," says the researcher Yann Clough.