Restoration of wetlands in the Midwest "has the potential to significantly reduce peak river flows during floods - not only now, but also in the future if heavy rains continue to increase in intensity," says Oregon State U.

The Porcine Epidemic Diarrhea virus that killed more than 6 million piglets in a U.S. outbreak that began in 2013 "could survive a trip around the world, if it catches the right ride," reports Harvest Public Media.

A Washington State judge ruled that the food industry broke campaign finance laws by concealing the source of millions of dollars of funding that was used to defeat a statewide referendum on GMO food labeling.

Legislation to pre-empt state laws that require special labels on food made with genetically modified organisms amount to "protecting corporate interests," says Vermont Sen. Patrick Leahy, a member of the Senate Agriculture Committee, where a pre-emption bill in on the agenda.

Leaders of the Republican-controlled House Budget Committee proposed steep cuts in federal spending in order to balance the budget in 10 years.

The Westlands Water District, the “biggest of big shots in the water world of California’s Central Valley,” was fined $195,000 last week by the Securities and Exchange Commission for altering records to hide drought-related expenses, reports the L.A. Times.

To add to the list of woes facing honeybees, researchers have discovered a parasite that burrows into drones, making them act rather like members of the living dead before they die.

California farmers made $53.5 billion in sales in 2014, even as Governor Jerry Brown declared a drought emergency and mandated urban water cuts for 2015. The record sales figures, which represent the most recent data available, were released in a new report by the state agriculture department.

Researchers say the biosphere, which includes the plants, animals and organisms on land around the world, has become a "net source" of greenhouse gases such as methane and nitrous oxide, reports the Washington Post, citing a study in the journal Nature.

Farmers around the world are expect to expand corn plantings by 1 percent in 2016/17, including larger corn areas in the United States, the former Soviet Union, South America and Africa, says the International Grains Council.

Algae blooms are poisoning marine life farther north than they ever have, says a new study by the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

Federal workplace records show that during the first nine months of 2015, "workers in meatpacking plants owned by Tyson Foods averaged at least one amputation a month," says Harvest Public Media, which credits occupational health professor Celeste Monforton for getting the data through a Freedom of Information Act request.

Officials from Canada and the United States will launch the Protein Highway initiative this summer to brand six U.S. states and three Canadian provinces as the region with potential to become the world's biggest supplier of protein, says the Pierre (SD) Capital Journal.

A team of scientists from Argentina, Brazil, Mexico, and Spain has deciphered the genome of the Mesoamerican common bean (Phaseolus vulgaris), according to Spain's Center for Genomic Regulation. The findings are reported in the current issue of the journal Genome Biology.

Lake Shasta is 79-percent full, the first time California's largest reservoir has exceeded its average level for mid-March in nearly three years, "after a wet weekend in northern California," reports the Los Angeles Times.

The operator of the Chicago livestock futures and options exchanges said it would shorten the trading day effective Feb. 29 to the period when trading volume is heaviest and the markets have their greatest liquidity.

The Abe administration in Japan says it will submit 11 bills to the parliament to ratify the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade pact, reported Feedstuffs.