Farm, biofuel and biotech groups petitioned the U.S. appeals court in Washington to hear a challenge to the EPA's relaxation of the renewable fuel mandate for this year, reports DTN.

The U.S. food supply is generally free of dangerous levels of pesticide residue, according to federal monitors who looked at fresh and processed fruits and vegetables, oats, rice, infant formula, and salmon in 2014.

Kansas Rep. Tim Huelskamp lost his seat on the House Agriculture Committee in 2012 for defying Republican leaders, and is challenged in the GOP primary as an ineffective rabble-rouser. "The three-term congressman says he's now confident he will regain his Agriculture post by the next Congress," says National Journal in sizing up the race.

The El Niño-intensified drought in southern Africa "could nudge African nations to finally embrace genetically modified crops to improve harvests and reduce grain imports," says Reuters.

The government is stockpiling up to 500 million doses of vaccine against highly pathogenic avian influenza in the wake of the worst-ever U.S. epidemic of bird flu that killed nearly 50 million fowl. "But many in the $48 billion [poultry] industry don't want it," reports Bloomberg.

Neonicotinoid pesticides are used as a seed treatment on 80 percent of corn land and 40 percent of soybean acreage in the United States, says Purdue U in releasing a publication that assesses the pesticides value in soybeans.

Mammoth supplies and sluggish economic growth pushed down prices of the major food commodities - grain, dairy, meat, vegetable oils and sugar - by a combined average of 19 percent in 2015, said the UN Food and Agriculture Organization.

State Sen. John Kuehn proposed a constitutional amendment for Nebraska to guarantee farming and ranching rights, said Associated Press. It would require state officials to show a compelling state interest if they want to restrict agricultural technology and livestock production.

South Africa has agreed to remove barriers to U.S. poultry, beef and pork, said U.S. Trade Representative Michael Froman. The United States threatened at the end of 2015 to revoke duty-free status for agricultural products from South Africa because it blocked U.S. meat. "The true test of our success will be based on the ability of South African consumers to buy American product in local stores," said Froman.

Huge amounts of food are discarded each year, but "hardly anyone talks about what all that food waste is doing to wildlife," says Yale e360. The story points to "a growing body of evidence suggests that our casual attitude about waste may be reshaping the way the natural world functions across much of the planet.

Even though China has not approved cultivation of GMO crops, environmental group Greenpeace says farmers in the northeastern part of the country are growing the crop illegally, said Reuters.

Researchers say that over a four-decade period ending in 2007, the world lost a tenth of its cereal grain crops, such as rice, wheat and corn, due to droughts, heat waves and other extreme weather, reports the New York Times.