Seven separate outbreaks of salmonella this year have been linked to backyard chicken flocks, resulting in 66 hospitalizations, the CDC said. One person who was hospitalized also died, though salmonella was not considered a factor in the death.

Twenty-nine countries from Iceland to Sudan established the world’s first fisheries pact designed to stamp out pirate fishing, the UN FAO said. The Agreement on Port State Measures to Prevent, Deter and Eliminate Illegal, Unreported and Unregulated Fisheries (PSMA) took effect on June 5.

One-third of the food grown in the world goes to waste, from causes that range from spoilage in the field to uneaten food at the dining table, according to a common estimate. A public-private partnership unveiled a standard format for measuring losses, with the dual goal of a more precise measurement of where losses occur and a spur to prevent waste in the future.

Wheat stripe rust, a fungal disease that can reduce yields by 40 percent, has "swept through fields from Oklahoma to Kansas up into the Dakotas and east into the Great Lakes states," says DTN. The disease arrived as the winter wheat crop nears harvest; USDA will update its estimate of the crop on Friday.

A growing number of Chinese activists are calling for the city of Yulin, China, to cancel its annual dog-meat festival, slated for June 21st, says NPR. Since 2010, the city has butchered thousands of dogs, many of which were originally pets that were stolen from their owners, sometimes by gangs who sedate them with poisoned darts. Activists in the UK, Canada and U.S. have long campaigned against the country’s dog-eating traditions. But now that more Chinese citizens own pets, the practice of consuming dog is increasingly unpopular domestically, too.

Entomologists across the Midwest and South say a commonly used strategy to preserve the potency of GE corn that makes its own insect-repelling toxins, known as "refuge in a bag," "may actually increase the risk of Bt resistance in above-ground insects, particularly in the southern United States," reports DTN.

Nigeria, Africa’s largest and most-populous country, needs help feeding refugees fleeing armed conflict in the northeastern corner of the country, according to the UN Food and Agriculture Organization in a quarterly report on food insecurity around the world.

Agriculture Minister Gustavo Rodriguez Rollero told a U.S. audience that Cuba wants to expand farm output dramatically, in part to feed the increasing stream of tourists to the island. The country now imports $2 billion in food annually "but we want to produce at least 50 percent," Rodriguez said at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce during a visit to Washington and Iowa, reported Agencia EFE.

A federal appeals court in Chile has ruled that the country’s salmon farmers have to disclose their level of antibiotic use, says Reuters. The international environmental group Oceana filed the claim for transparency in 2014, when Chilean salmon producers upped their antibiotic use by 25 percent in order to fight off a devastating bacteria known as SRS or Piscirickettsiosis.

Some members of New York City Council want to allocate $50 million from the city budget pay farmers to keep farming in Hudson Valley, reports The New York Times.

Despite millions of tons of available feedstock, ranging from corn stover to switchgrass and wood waste, only a trickle of cellulosic ethanol is being produced. "Cellulosic fuels' main hurdle seems to be economic," says Scientific American in sizing up the second-generation biofuel that has failed to live up to expectations for a cleaner-burning fuel that doesn't compete with the food and feed sectors.

The USDA’s Food Safety Inspection Service (FSIS) will grant poultry processors more time to comply with the agency’s new salmonella and campylobacter standards, giving fowl farmers until July 1 to implement the stricter guidelines.

As China grapples with its massive cotton surplus, Bangladesh and Vietnam will take its place as the world's leading cotton importers, says the International Cotton Advisory Committee. China will remain the largest consumer, using nearly three of every 10 tonnes of cotton that goes through cotton mills in 2016/17.

Because member states disagree, the European Commission, the administrative arm of the EU, will ask for a short-term extension of the license allowing the use of glyphosate while safety studies of the weedkiller are completed, said Health Commissioner Vytenis Andriukaitis.

House Speaker Paul Ryan is "fairly hands-on when it comes to his kids' diet," says Roll Call, in excerpting a People magazine interview with the Wisconsin Republican and 2012 vice-presidential nominee.

With less than 1 percent of North American oceans under protection, the continent is falling far behind international targets to conserve ocean ecosystems, says a report out by NGOs in Canada, the U.S. and Mexico.

Corn, soybean and wheat growers would receive significant payments — as high as $80 an acre for corn — under the insurance-like Agriculture Risk Coverage subsidy based on the low commodity prices now forecast, says Ohio State economist Carl Zulauf.