Sugary drinks, such as full-calorie soda, are usually cheaper per ounce than milk, says a team of researchers from Drexel University that looked at beverage prices in 1,743 supermarkets in 41 states. The difference was most pronounced in neighborhoods with a higher concentration of black and Hispanic residents.

The committee writing the party platform for the Republican National Convention gave its support to "legislation providing the timely and orderly mechanism requiring the federal government to convey certain federally controlled public lands to the states," says Oregon Public Broadcasting. "The language echoes some of the demands of the armed occupiers of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge in southeast Oregon earlier this year."

In a step the ethanol industry called a game changer, HRWT Oil Co. said it will sell pre-blended E15 at four fuel terminals in the Midwest and Mid-South. Gasoline stations have been slow to offer E15 despite EPA approval, partly because of difficulties in acquiring and dispensing the fuel.

The U.S. Supreme Court appears poised to finally hear a lawsuit between Texas and New Mexico over water rights to the Rio Grande, says The Texas Tribune. Three years ago, the Lone Star state alleged that New Mexico farmers were taking more than their fair share of the river’s water. Now a court-appointed special master, Gregory Grismal, has released a 273-page report recommending that the court ignore New Mexico’s request to drop the suit.

More than 90 member-owned rural electric cooperatives in 16 states committed to install community solar projects by the end of 2017, said the White House in announcing an initiative to expand solar power and improve energy efficiency across the nation.

During a panel discussion at the summer meeting of the National Governors Association, Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack urged state governments to alter the "extraction economy" of sending goods and people to the city, said the Des Moines Register. One step to bolster rural areas, Vilsack said, would be for governors to work with schools and large institutions to buy food locally.

Unlike other countries, including the United States, Australia does not provide subsidized insurance against drought. A newly released study, commissioned by the state of New South Wales after three years of drought across the nation's East coast, rejected any change in policy, says Reuters.

As part of a visit to land-locked Malawi, Second Lady Jill Biden announced an additional $20 million in U.S. food assistance to offset the effects of drought that began in 2015 and was magnified by the El Niño weather pattern. An estimated 40 percent of the population of the country in southeastern Africa are in need of humanitarian aid.

The Missouri state Agriculture Department has received more than 100 complaints this spring and summer of crop damage from wind-spread "drift" of the herbicide dicamba from neighboring fields, says DTN, saying some growers are using the weedkiller on soybeans although it is not approved. "The hotbed for the off-target and off-label problems appears to be southeast Missouri, northeast Arkansas and northwest Tennessee," said DTN.

Bayer upped its bid to buy Monsanto to $65 billion in a move to create the world’s largest supplier of crop seeds and chemicals, says The Wall Street Journal. The proposed merger is part of a wave of consolidation in the seed and agricultural chemical industry, including the Dow-DuPont merger and the purchase of Syngenta by state-owned ChemChina.

Palestinians in the Gaza Strip say that their crops are failing because of herbicides sprayed by Israel along the Gaza-Israel buffer zone, says Aljazeera. It quoted an Israeli Army spokesman who confirmed spraying in the area, citing security reasons.

Farmer and rancher participation in federally created "check-off" programs, which raise money for research and promotion of two dozen commodities from cotton to beef and milk, would become voluntary rather than mandatory under a bill filed by Sen. Mike Lee, a Utah Republican. A conservative, Lee said mandatory collection of check-off fees "is crony capitalism at its worst."

More than a decade after it banned slaughter of "downer" cattle to provide meat for human consumption, USDA said it will ban slaughter of veal calves that are unable to stand or walk when they arrive at packing plants. The Food Safety and Inspection Service said the ban, to take effect 60 days after publication in the Federal Register, will mean that the calves receive better treatment.

A new FDA regulation, issued as part of implementation of the Food Safety Modernization Act, says farms and farm-operated businesses that sell directly to customers are exempt from regulation as food facilities, a category aimed at processing plants. The National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition said the regulation would prevent undue regulation of small farms.

Over the past year, UK cropland values have fallen by 9 percent, says Agrimoney, with one land company seeing a continued decline this summer while another says prices are stabilizing after the steepest decline in at least 12 years. Both companies "were sanguine about the effect of a British exit from the EU on land prices," said Agrimoney, based in London.

Food stamp enrollment dropped by nearly 2 percent in April, to 43.6 million people, the lowest number of recipients since 2010 as the nation began to recover from recession, said the think tank Center for Budget and Policy Priorities. "In many states, the improving economy likely was a major factor," said the center, which also pointed to effect of stricter eligibility rules.