Chinese businessman Mo Hailong pleaded guilty in Des Moines to conspiracy to steal trade secrets - inbred corn seeds from two of the largest U.S. seed companies - in return for prosecutors' recommendation of a shorter prison sentence, said the Justice Department. "Mo Hailong participated in the theft of inbred corn seeds from fields in the Southern District of Iowa for the purpose of transporting the seeds to China. The stolen inbred, or parent, seeds were the valuable intellectual property of DuPont Pioneer and Monsanto."

Three dozen companies announced recently that they will be using 100 percent cage-free eggs in the next five to 10 years, says Civil Eats, which quotes an Ohio State University professor as saying the change in policy will be a case study at business school. "It's completely market-driven," says professor Michael Liburn. More companies are adopting animal welfare policies and states such as California, Michigan and Oregon require egg producers to give hens more space than they get in the so-called battery cage that is often used.

The cotton industry request for USDA to make cottonseed eligible for subsidy as an oilseed raises several policy questions including where to find the $1 billion a year that the program would cost, say four economists. Market prices are so low that payments are certain if Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack approves the request to declare cottonseed an "other oilseed" covered by the subsidies offered to grain and soybean growers.

Washington State Attorney General Bob Ferguson asked a court Monday to grant summary judgment and penalties for the Grocery Manufacturers Association in a suit stemming from the group's campaign against GMO labeling. GMA, a Washington D.C.-based trade association, was the largest donor to the “No on 522” campaign, which sought to block genetic labeling requirements in 2013.

California water officials said snowpack in the Sierra Nevada was nearly 19 inches or 115 percent of average, "a modest yet encouraging milestone in a period of prolonged drought," says the Los Angeles Times. It was the deepest snowpack in five years. Meanwhile El Niño rainstorms have raised water levels in reservoirs.

Opponents of the "waters of the United States" (WOTUS) rule issued by EPA face difficult odds in Congress, says DTN, citing a Library of Congress study on legislative options for derailing regulations. The study said lawmakers could pass bills that restrict or deny funding to EPA to enforce the rule, propose a stand-alone bill to overturn the rule or amend the clean water law to de-fang WOTUS.

Ten employees at Syngenta Kauai were taken to the hospital when they walked onto a corn field 20 hours after the application of chlorpyrifos, reports The Civil Beat. Typically, workers are supposed to wait 24 hours before going back into the fields after a chlorpyrifos spray. Three of the workers stayed overnight at the hospital, but all have since been released and cleared for work.

A U.S. appellate court turned down EPA's request to withdraw its registration of a new weedkiller that its developer, Dow Chemical, expects will be a big seller. "The three-sentence order did not elaborate on the judges' reasoning," said the Chicago Tribune, adding the decision "brought the next generation of genetically modified crops closer to America's dinner tables."

With farm income down in 2015, persistently high need by farmers and ranchers for short-term loans "amplified concerns about farm sector liquidity moving into 2016, especially if farmers' profit margins remain low," said the Ag Finance Databook published by the Kansas City Federal Reserve Bank. The book, produced quarterly and looking at agriculture nationwide, said, "Loans used to finance current operating expenses remained at record levels, while most other types of non-real estate loans declined slightly."

After more than three-weeks of national media attention, the occupation of Malheur National Wildlife Refuge in Oregon took a violent turn Tuesday afternoon when federal officials stopped several of the militia members on a state highway outside of Burns, Oregon, reports the New York Times.

Four of the world's most populous nations -- China, India, the U.S. and Brazil -- "are responsible for 46 percent of the world's nitrogen emissions," says the University of Sydney, which led an international collaboration to calculate the first-ever global nitrogen footprint.

The Spanish energy company Abengoa "will seek to sell its biofuel business as part of a debt restructuring plan to avoid bankruptcy," reports Bloomberg.

With U.S. repeal of country-of-origin labels (COOL) for beef and pork, a notable increase in shipments of Canadian hogs is forecast by USDA economists.

The chemical and agricultural company DuPont says it expects "a slight year-over-year uptick" in corn plantings in the United States, the world's largest grower, and Brazil, the No. 3 grower behind China.

A test of mechanical pollination of almond trees by a University of California farm adviser indicates that it's better to stick with bees, says Western Farm Press.

Lawmakers in Utah announced on Monday that they’re poised to sue the federal government for control of 31 million acres of public land, according to an AP report in The Spectrum.