Africa accounts for 28 of the 36 countries worldwide that need food aid, says the FAO in its quarterly Crop Prospects and Food Situation report. Drought reduced harvests in North Africa and in southern Africa, more than offsetting improvements in East and West Africa and pulling the continent's grain output to a below-normal level.

Ahead of a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on consolidation in the seed and ag chemical sector, the Justice Department and the Federal Trade Commission say they will consider the combined impact of mergers as well as the import of each deal. If they go forward, the mergers would result in three dominant companies in the sector instead of the current six.

The world's largest pork producer and consumer, China, has soared into the lead as the world's largest pork importer, accounting for one-fourth of the world market. China will import 2.4 million tons of pork this year, a million tons more than Japan, the previous leader, says a semiannual USDA report.

In response to a Justice Department lawsuit, Deere and Co., the world's largest farm equipment maker, says its purchase of a competitor, Precision Planting, will expand farmers' ability to update their planters and will not reduce competition for planter sales.

The rampant destruction of rainforest by the Indonesian palm-oil industry is leaving villagers with few options but to poach species like the Helmeted Hornbill to extinction, says Jocelyn Zuckerman in FERN’s latest story, published with Audubon Magazine.

Food regulators in China issued strict new rules, known as Order 27, "governing how food producers and operators — including related third-party computer platform and delivery service providers — store, market and transport their products sold online," said Food Safety News.

In a speech to the New York Economic Club, Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump said, "I will eliminate all needless and job-killing regulations" in federal government. A fact sheet distributed by the campaign listed "specific regulations to be eliminated," including the "FDA Food Police," reported The Hill newspaper.

Founded four years ago as the first lobbying group for the food movement, Food Policy Action said it will work to defeat second-term Rep. David Valadao, a California republican and member of the House Appropriations subcommittee overseeing USDA and FDA funding.

The fight over North Dakota's ban on corporate farming continues in federal court despite a June referendum in support of the 1932 law. The North Dakota Farmers Union, which spearheaded the successful referendum, asked for permission to intervene in the lawsuit, said the Fargo Forum.

Some young and beginning farmers say they have lost access to cropland because the owners could get a higher rental rate from USDA's Conservation Reserve than they could by renting it, said Iowa Sens Charles Grassley and Joni Ernst in a letter to Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack. The senators said they have heard complaints from Iowans over the past few months about USDA's operation of the reserve, which pays landowners an annual rent to idle farmland for 10 years or longer.

Climate change could “cut the global area suitable for coffee production by as much as 50 percent by 2050,” largely because of drought and higher temperatures, says a report by the Climate Institute. Of the 25 million coffee farmers around the world, many are small landholders living in countries that are among the most vulnerable to climate change, including Vietnam, Honduras, Guatemala and Nicaragua. Major retailers like Starbucks have already warned that their customers could see supply shortages, according to the Climate Institute.

Antibiotics play a crucial role in treating disease in farm animals and plants, said the UN Food and Agriculture Organization in releasing an "action plan" to promote prudent use of antimicrobials. "Their use is essential to food security, to our well-being and to animal welfare," said the FAO, but the emergence of bacteria resistant to antibiotics is a threat to human health.

The record-setting U.S. soybean crop is even bigger than expected, up nearly 2 percent from USDA's previous forecast to an estimated 4.269 billion bushels. With farm-gate prices at the second-lowest level in a decade, soybean exports will exceed 2 billion bushels for the first time, according to the monthly WASDE report.

It's not in the same class as the famous poster of Uncle Sam sternly declaring, "I want you for the U.S. Army." But the government is asking retailers to volunteer for a two-year, nationwide trial of online grocery sales for food-stamp recipients.

A UN official working on humanitarian aid in Africa warns of "a famine unlike any we have seen anywhere" in northeastern Nigeria unless aid is provided immediately, says the Washington Post. "The staggering hunger crisis created by (Boko Haram) insurgents has been largely hidden from view."

With a worldwide glut holding down cotton prices, the National Cotton Council, a U.S. trade group, called for an examination of domestic supports offered to growers in China, India and other developing countries as well as of the impact of synthetic fibers. Gary Adams, the Cotton Council's chief executive, said India, China and Pakistan are years behind in reporting the scope and type of subsidies offered to their growers.

European chemical companies have revealed plans to develop plant-based plastics for Coca-Cola bottles and Danone yogurt cups, says Reuters. One of the firms, Avantium, will announce an initial public offering (IPO) this week to help fund a new production facility for the material, which it is co-producing with Germany's BASF, the largest chemical producer in the world.

Certified organic farms sold $6.2 billion worth of organic products in 2015, a 13 percent increase from the previous year, according to a USDA report on the small yet burgeoning industry. The survey found 12,818 certified organic farms, a modest increase from 12,595 farms in 2014.