Nearly half of the world's wheat-growing land is sown with varieties developed by an international network of plant scientists, or their national partners, says a report by the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center. Adoption of the new varieties has been particularly brisk since 2010, "which may be due to the introduction of rust-resistance varieties in recent years," says the study.

Conservative Rep. Mike Pompeo, sponsor of the House-passed bill to pre-empt state GMO label laws, is declining to say if he will run for the Senate in Kansas against fellow Republican and incumbent Jerry Moran.

Farmers in the top corn-growing province of China say they will shift land to soybeans or other crops now that the government is reducing the support price for corn. The decision to allow the market to set the price for corn "should transform the agricultural landscape," says Reuters.

The world's largest seed company, Monsanto, "has abandoned efforts to pursue large-scale deals, instead charting an independent path amid a steep downturn in the agricultural business," said the Wall Street Journal.

Philadelphia Mayor Jim Kenney is taking a new tack on the soda tax. Instead of promoting it as a public-health tool, Kenney asks the city council to approve a 3-cent-an-ounce tax on sugar-sweetened beverages as a way to pay for universal pre-kindergarten for the city's children, says the New York Times.

Summit Agricultural Group, based in north-central Iowa, is building a 60 million-gallon corn ethanol plant in Mato Grosso, the largest corn and soybean producing state in Brazil, says DTN.

Chemicals in hydraulic fracking are capable of disrupting the endocrine systems of fish and potentially humans, says a new study that tested water around a fracking wastewater disposal site in Fayetteville, West Virginia.

As part of the 1996 welfare reform law, unemployed adults without children are limited to three months of food stamp benefits in a three-year period, unless they live in an area with high unemployment.

Rice cereal is a common "starter" food for infants, but rice has higher levels of inorganic arsenic, a potential health risk, than other grains.

Less than a decade after a worldwide surge in food prices that began in 2008, grain bins are bursting around the globe. But the risk isn't over, says Quartz, pointing to a meeting called by the Council on Foreign Relations. A majority of the economists and policymakers at the session "believe food prices will spike again within five years."

In its first Crop Progress report of the year, the USDA rated 59 percent of the winter wheat crop in good or excellent condition, 15 points higher than a year ago.

The Obama administration will propose voluntary levels on sodium in processed foods as early as this summer, in "one of its last fights with Big Food," says Politico, citing current and former administration officials.

The governors of California and Oregon are scheduled to join Interior Secretary Sally Jewell in signing an agreement today to remove four hydroelectric dams on the Klamath River by 2020, said the North Coast Journal, based in Eureka, CA.

Forget the rumors: quinoa’s international popularity hasn’t made the Peruvian grain too expensive for Peruvians, says NPR.

A new federal rule bans fishermen from catching eight kinds of forage fish in a 200-mile zone off the coasts of Oregon, Washington State and California, reports The Seattle Times.

Global cotton production will increase 4 percent this year, led by larger crops in India and the United States while China tries to whittle down its massive stockpile, said the International Cotton Advisory Council.