Japanese convenience stores are stocking their shelves with extra products for the elderly now that almost 27 percent of the country is 65 or older, says NPR. For example, Lawson, a popular convenience-store chain, carries food packages labeled 1-5 for how hard the food is to chew. "The higher the level, the less need for you to chew. In the end it's porridge," says the store's manager, Masahiko Terada.

The USDA said it plans to buy about 11 million pounds of cheese for food banks and pantries across the nation, reducing a cheese surplus that is at its highest level in 30 years. The purchase, valued at $20 million, came after a concerted campaign by the dairy industry, which is facing a 35-percent drop in revenues.

A year-long survey found that cost-cutting had resulted in a steep decline in the quantity and quality of food served in prisons, making instant ramen a more valuable commodity than tobacco, The Guardian reports.

Police officers in California's Humboldt County, where most of the state's pot is grown, are turning to environmental laws to catch illegal growers, reports USA Today.

A tiny percentage of Iowa farmers are turning to diversified vegetable and fruit production to augment or replace their fields of corn and soybeans, the Des Moines Register reports. The paper says that the chance for farmers "to diversify their crop mix, receive more income and avoid the price volatility that has squeezed profitability recently for corn and soybean producers can be enticing."

A former high-ranking USDA official, Bruce I. Knight, argues in an opinion piece on Agri-Pulse that the conservation reserve program should focus on "environmentally sensitive acreage" rather than placing high-quality croplands under CRP contracts. "When we use CRP in the conservation portfolio of tools we should use it surgically and strategically to trap and treat nutrient runoff or to provide specific habitat benefits rather than large-scale whole field enrollments," he writes.

A USDA agronomist in Minnesota has invented an air-powered device that shoots out farm residues — "from seed meals to nut shells, fruit pits, and corn cob grits" — at weeds and pulverizes them while leaving corn shoots standing tall, reports Modern Farmer. Dried chicken manure is a current favorite to target the pesky plants. “We can weed and feed at the same time,” Frank Forcella told the magazine.

Experts say farming in Africa needs to be modernized and "transformed" to make it more appealing to young people as a way of life, Reuters reports. According to the FAO, the average age of farmers on the continent is 60, while 60-percent of the population is under 24.

A bill to improve farmworker pay is back in front of the California Assembly after failing by four votes in June. Assemblywoman Lorena Gonzalez brought the law back to the floor by tucking it into an unrelated proposal, Assembly Bill 1066, says the LA Times.

In Argentina, the use of glyphosate increased 1,000 percent between 1994 and 2010, as soybean farmers fought off resistant weeds, says the BBC. With large amounts of the herbicide still being applied to fields, some experts think that it may be responsible for a surge in health problems among rural residents.

With corn and soybean prices plummeting, and pressure to reduce runoff from fields mounting, some Iowa farmers are turning to oats as a possible solution to both problems, says Harvest Public Media.

After two years of a scorched-earth campaign by the Islamic terrorist group Boko Haram, northeast Nigeria faces a “severe hunger " emergency, says the LA Times. Up to 50,000 children could starve and 250,000 more are dealing with extreme malnutrition, according to UNICEF. And yet before Boko Haram, northeast Nigeria was considered the country’s breadbasket, rich in maize and millet, as well as vegetables.

“Long before the Russians were caught doping their athletes with steroids, the former Soviet Union spent decades secretly searching for energy-enhancing plants that would help their Olympians, as well as their soldiers and astronauts, perform better,” writes FERN's Kristina Johnson, in our latest piece, with National Geographic.

China National Chemical Corp. said it had received clearance from the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States for its $43 billion acquisition of Swiss-based Syngenta, the New York Times reported. The approval removed one of the biggest potential challenges to the deal, the paper said.

With the floodwaters still rising in some parts of Louisiana, a lot of farmers with crops still in the field, as well as some with harvested crops in storage, are facing a total loss, says AgriPulse.

Researchers at the USDA have developed a new food-packaging material made out of milk-protein (i.e. casein) that is both biodegradable and edible, says EurekAlert. Compared to petroleum-based plastics, the casein-based packaging is 500 times more effective at keeping out oxygen, which could dramatically reduce food waste from spoilage.

The USDA's Center for Nutrition Policy and Promotion has created a series of quizzes on the five food groups that are "designed to challenge, teach, and even entertain," says Feedstuffs.

Climate Corp., a subsidiary of Monsanto, says it will develop its own in-field network of weather and soil monitors—including a sensor that tracks nitrate levels—to broaden its agronomic models that help farmers decide their crop strategies. The nitrate sensor could mean more efficient use of nitrogen fertilizer and less runoff into waterways.

The invasive European grapevine moth, detected in Napa County in 2009, has been eradicated in California, according to state, county and U.S. agricultural officials. The moth, native to southern Europe, spread to nine other counties before a multi-year campaign contained and then exterminated it.

U.S. red meat and poultry production in the final half of this year will be 3-percent higher than the same period in 2015, say USDA economists. The rapid expansion in the beef, pork and poultry supply will mean lower market prices across the board, with cattle down 11.7 percent, hogs down 8.3 percent, broiler chickens down 5 percent and turkeys down 6.8 percent.