Less than two years ago, a deadly virus swept across U.S. hog farms and killed millions of piglets, starting a chain reaction that led to record-high pork prices in grocery stores.

Almost all of the U.S. sugar beet harvest comes from GMO varieties. At the annual meeting of the Minn-Dak Farmers Cooperative, president Kurt Wickstrom told members to be aware of anti-GMO sentiment among consumers, says Agweek.

The climate-change deal signed in Paris "is a game-changer" for the 800 million hungry people in the world, because it is the first global agreement to give priority to food security, says the UN Food and Agriculture Organization.

The chickens that roam freely at households in Zimbabwe and other developing nations may have a connection to stunting, which limits the physical and mental development in children.

In a one-page order, the U.S. appeals court in San Francisco set Dec. 30, 2016, as the deadline for the EPA to respond to a petition by two environmental groups calling for a ban on chlorpyrifos, an insecticide, reports Agri-Pulse.

Ensyn Georgia plans to build a 20-million-gallon-a-year cellulosic biorefinery with the help of a $70 million loan guarantee from the USDA. The plant would convert 440 dry tons of woody biomass from forest materials at the plant in Dooly County in central Georgia.

The Great Basin Food Co-op lets shoppers see the farmers behind the food sold at the store in Reno, Nevada, through 75-second videos available via a smartphone app, says Modern Farmer.

Average net income on Illinois grain farms is projected at $20,000, dramatically lower than the $104,000 average last year. "At current projections of commodity prices, net incomes in 2016 likely will be low as well," writes U-Illinois economist Gary Schnitkey at farmdoc daily.

Two of the four largest cotton-growing nations in the world are harvesting markedly smaller crops this year, says the monthly World Agricultural Production report. Low commodity prices are a factor for the reductions in China and Pakistan, along with local conditions.

PARIS – Due to an initiative launched by France, there is now an international framework that for the first time brings agricultural soils into climate negotiations. Called “4 per 1000,” this new proposal aims to protect and increase carbon stocks in soil.

In a joint statement, Canada and Mexico said the United States must repeal its country-of-origin label (COOL) scheme or face $1.01 billion in retaliatory tariffs. “Canada and Mexico recognize that the U.S. House of Representatives repealed COOL for beef and pork last June, and we renew our call on the U.S. Senate to quickly do the same in order to avoid retaliation against U.S. exports," said the statement,

Some 90 percent of the 2.1 million farms in the United States are small operations with less than $350,000 a year in gross cash farm income, says a new USDA publication, "America's Diverse Family Farms."

Agricultural trade rules "should be crafted with an eye to improving countries' food security and other development objectives," said the Food and Agriculture Organization in releasing the biennial update of one of its flagship reports.

The potential merger of industrial giants Dow and Dupont "would merge two agricultural chemicals businesses and fold in DuPont's seeds business, analysts said, bringing a close look from regulators. Farmers said they were concerned about higher prices for seeds and chemicals," reported Reuters.

As environment ministers hashed out the details of a climate change agreement, FERN correspondent Daniel Grossman sat down with two prominent experts in Paris to talk about the impact of climate change on agriculture.