The portion of the U.S. population that is overweight or obese keeps growing larger - literally - and some experts say the "food environment" is a reason, says Vox, citing Scott Kahan, director of the National Center for Weight and Wellness. "[I]n America," says Kahan, "the unhealtiest foods are the tastiest foods, the cheapest foods, the largest-portion foods, the most available foods and the most fun foods."

Minnesota Gov. Mark Dayton issued an executive order limiting the use of neonicotinoid pesticides to a demonstrated need by farmers to prevent economic losses to their crops, says Minnesota Public Radio. The pesticides are believed to be a factor in steep declines in bee populations, along with parasites, disease, poor nutrition and bad weather.

It's up to Gov Jerry Brown to decide if California farmworkers will be paid overtime for working more than eight hours in a day. Only weeks after defeating an overtime bill, the state Assembly passed, 44-32, a bill calling for a four-year phase-in of overtime rules beginning in 2019 and resulting in overtime pay beginning in 2022, says the Los Angeles Times.

Due to voter distaste for Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump, Democratic strategists say their party may have chances to win in up to a dozen GOP-held seats in the House, including the district held by Kevin Yoder, reports the New York Times. Yoder, a fiscal conservative who represents the suburbs of Kansas City, is a member of the House Appropriations subcommittee that oversees funding for FDA and USDA.

Biotech startup New Wave Foods is selling "prawns" made from algae and plant ingredients, says The Guardian. “We’ve done a few blind taste tests—unofficially, you know—and until we tell people it’s made of plants and algae they can’t tell,” says the company’s CEO, Dominique Barnes, who has a background in marine conservation. Even the executive chef at Google was so impressed when he tried the product that he ordered 200 pounds.

With the widespread adoption of genetically engineered crops — accounting for 94 percent of all soybeans and 93 percent of all corn in the U.S. in 2015 — the use of the herbicides rose, although insecticide use in corn declined, according to a new study published in the journal Science.

In the arid West, pioneering California farmers are using drones to add another layer of precision to their use of irrigation water, says Associated Press. One of the pioneers, Cannon Michael, of Bowles Farming Co. in Los Banos, has mounted a thermal camera on a drop to spot leaks from underground irrigation pipes — color variations indicate different amounts of moisture in the soil.

NASA's top climate scientist says the globe is warming at a faster pace than seen anytime in the past millennium, so it is "very unlikely" the world can contain the rise in temperatures to the target set in the 2015 Paris climate accord, reported the The Guardian. So far this year, global temperatures are 1.38 degrees C above the levels experienced in the 19th century, "perilously close to the 1.5 degrees C" limit in the accord.

The government of Mexico published a regulation that requires a 5.8-percent blend of ethanol into gasoline sold in the country, with the exception of three major metropolitan areas of Mexico City, Guadalajara and Monterrey, reports the Washington Examiner. U.S. ethanol groups said the mandate represented an expansion of the market for renewable fuels in North America.

The domestic chicken could become the defining symbol of the current geological age, says The Guardian. Many scientists are calling the present era the “Anthropocene,” because it is marked by human impact on earth. And that includes the chickens we have kept and slaughtered ever since villagers in southeast Asia first captured its slow-flying ancestor, the red junglefowl, 7,000-10,000 years ago.

Mitch Daniels, president of Purdue University, says the school's newly dedicated Indiana Corn and Soybean Innovation Center "will play a big part" in helping to assure enough food for the rising world population. The center is the first field phenotyping facility in North America.

The U.S. Northeast, home to 175,000 farms, is under the worst drought in more than a decade, says the NPR blog The Salt. "Many fields are bone dry," says NPR, "and that has many farmers thinking about how to manage their land, their animals and the water that is there."

The Agriculture Department closed offices in six locations in five states, including its mammoth research center in Beltsville, MD, on Tuesday because of anonymous but serious threats. Four of the locations, including Beltsville, were to re-open today with stronger security measures in place, said The Associated Press.

Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump promised to protect the Renewable Fuel Standard and corn-based ethanol, eliminate burdensome regulations like the Waters of the United States rule ("which is a disaster") and provide tax relief to farmers in a speech in Des Moines over the weekend, says the Des Moines Register. Trump also said he would use immigration laws to prevent crime. "We will move justly but we will move fast, believe me. And we will move tough," he said.

U.S. soybean plantings will be record-large for the second year in a row in 2017 if growers follow through on their stated plans, said Farm Futures magazine. In an email survey, farmers said they intend to plant more soybeans, cotton and sorghum next year while cutting back on corn and wheat.

Prospects for wheat and corn crops brightened in the past month, chiefly in the United States and the former Soviet Union, so the world is headed for "an all-time peak" grain crop of 2.069 billion tonnes, forecast the International Grains Council, based in London. The forecast is a sharp 3 percent larger than in July and portends the largest grain glut on record.

Foodservice giants Sodexo USA, Compass Group USA, and Aramark earned top scores in the Greenpeace report, “Sea of Distress,” which graded 15 major contract-management companies and distributors on their policies around sustainable seafood.