To mark its 250th anniversary, Rutgers introduced for gardeners this season "a re-invented version of a tomato variety from 1934 that reigned unchallenged for decades," says the New York Times. The new variety, dubbed Rutgers 250, is a hit - the university is sold out of the 5,000 packets of seeds and home gardeners snapped up 1,200 seedlings in two hours.

The senators from the No. 1 corn state in the country, Iowa, asked USDA to explain how it determines county yields, a key factor in determining subsidy payments.

From small gardens to roof-top farms greenhouses, urban agriculture "is taking off and taking on new forms," says the Johns Hopkins Center for a Livable Future, which released a 35-page assessment of the movement.

Fish farms are hurting species diversity downstream, says a study out of Novia Scotia, the first of its kind in Canada. The study found that the number of different benthic invertebrate species -- small creatures like mayflies and caddisflies that live in the silt at the bottom of waterways -- was significantly lower downstream from fish farms than previous counts, according to the CBC.

In a major shift in policy, California's cities, water districts and private companies will set their own water conservation targets instead of being handed assignments by the state, Gov. Jerry Brown announced as drought conditions eased across the state. The new approach, expected to see approval by the State Water Resources Board of May 18, also would require more irrigation districts to quantify water-use efficiency by growers and spell out how they will handle shortages in the future.

Nearly hunted to extinction in the late 1800s, the North American bison is now the national mammal, thanks to President Obama's signature to enact HR 2908, the National Bison Legacy Act. The new law declares the woolly, 2,000-pound bison "a historical symbol of the United States."

At the same time China is whittling down its huge cotton surplus, high production costs will discourage its farmers from growing the fiber this year, says the International Cotton Advisory Committee. "Area in China is expected to decrease by 10 percent, to 3.1 million hectares in 2016/17," says ICAC, and with normal yields "production would fall by 10 percent, to 4.6 million tonnes."

California farmer Jack McCall died last Dec. 26 of non-Hodgkins lymphoma but remains "one of several plaintiffs in more than a dozen lawsuits that claim the active ingredient in Roundup -- a chemical called glyphosate -- gave them cancer," says Huffington Post.

East Porterville, an unincorporated part of agricultural Tulare County in California's Central Valley, won international attention as case study in suffering when the drought entered its fourth year in 2014. The shallow wells supplying residents went dry as the water table fell -- so many that East Porterville has 12 percent of the failed wells in the state.

Effective June 8, the USDA will have a new definition of canned baked beans for its voluntary labeling program. In a notice to appear today in the Federal Register, the agency says the revised definition reflects advances in technology in the processing industry, rather than referring to a specific method -- pressure cooking -- for preparing the beans.

Medical marijuana producers are carving out a niche market with kosher weed, now that rabbis have agreed to inspect their facilities, says the New York Times. “There’s no question that the number of patients that desire kosher products, coupled with battling the stigma associated with medical marijuana, made this a wise economic investment,” says Ari Hoffnung, chief executive at Vireo Health, which became the first medical marijuana company in the U.S. to receive a kosher certification this January.

Operating from Moss Mountain Farm in Arkansas, P. Allen Smith is a familiar name to gardeners and adherents of the food movement, says the UC Food Observer in a Q&A with Smith, who is an author and head of a media company. Smith, whose company produces television gardening shows for PBS, says, "I come from a long line of small, independent farmers."

After raising the question if there is an objective rationale for the high premium subsidy given to farmers who buy crop insurance, economist Carl Zulauf combed years of data for an answer. In a blog at farmdoc Daily, he says the answer may be to consider the types of risks that farmers face.

A federal judge ruled that the U.S. government’s attempts to recover Northwest salmon populations, hurt by dams, have failed. “In his ruling, US District Judge Michael Simon in Portland, Ore., lambasted the federal government’s current plan to ameliorate the effects of the dams, saying it violates both the Endangered Species Act and the National Environmental Policy Act,” says The Christian Science Monitor.

A four-year decline in global food prices has come to an end, says the FAO Food Price Index, which rose by 0.7 percent in April, the third consecutive monthly increase. "April's increase was driven by palm oil prices and, in a minor key, cereals, while sugar prices tapered down after a strong increase in March," said FAO.

April showers revived the winter wheat crop across Kansas, so the harvest may be one of the best ever, said crop scouts after a three-day assessment of conditions. They forecast a harvest of 382 million bushels, up 19 percent from 2015, said Bloomberg.

Forecasts call for an above-average monsoon in India but it won't be enough to restore depleted groundwater levels in rural areas after two years of below-normal rainfall, says CNN. The monsoon is not expected until June and for the moment, a heatwave is adding to the misery.