Lawmakers are considering an omnibus spending bill as a vehicle to pre-empt states from requiring labels on GMO foods. Instead, they would come up with other means for consumers to learn what is in their food, such as scanning a bar code with a smart phone.

In an editorial, the Washington Post advocates a national tax on sugar as the best way to discourage consumption and improve the general health of Americans. Some 16 percent of the calories consumed by Americans daily comes from sugar added to foods during processing, says the Post.

The centerpiece of the Thanksgiving meal, a roasted turkey, will cost about 6 percent more than a year ago, the result of the avian influenza epidemic that swept turkey and poultry farms in the Midwest last spring.

Some $350 million is available this fiscal year "to help landowners protect and restore key farmlands, grasslands and wetlands across the nation," said USDA. The money will flow through the Agricultural Conservation Easement Program for voluntary purchase of easements to keep land in farming and ranching and to protect wildlife habitat and water resources.

Soybean production around the world "could match last season's record," helping to boost the global stockpile to a new record, said the International Grains Council in a monthly report. Soybean stocks would rise despite a sharp 3 percent climb in consumption that includes larger imports by China, the world's larger buyer.

Chief executive Paul Pittman of Farmland Partners says his company's purchase last week of 120 farms in Illinois with a combined 22,300 acres is part of an expansion drive. "We think we can keep growing very substantially and target doubling in acreage and value every year," Pittman told DTN.

After soaring above $3 a dozen during the summer, the grocery store price for Large white eggs Grade A or better is down by 60 cents in a three-week period, says USDA's latest National Retail Report. The 26 percent drop puts the average nationally advertised price at $1.74 a dozen.

The agriculture minister of Western Australia is moving to repeal the state's GM Crop Free Areas Act with repeal by the state Parliament almost certain, says Australia's ABC News. Agriculture Minister Ken Baston planned to introduce the repeal legislation on Thursday, "a move which pro-GM advocates said would safeguard the industry's future."

Civic leaders in the western Iowa town of Harlan "are designing an economic development strategy around food and farm entrepreneurs," says a Wallace Center article reprinted by the Daily Yonder. The chief executive of the Shelby County Chamber of Commerce and Industry, Todd Valline, says, “Our goal is to establish Shelby County as the hub of the wheel of the local farm-to-table sector in the region."

Betsy Huber of Pennsylvania is the newly elected president of the National Grange, the first woman to lead the 80,000-member farm organization founded in 1867. The Grange describes itself as an advocate for rural America and agriculture--the oldest and largest in the country.

The U.S. investment giant TIAA-CREF "prides itself on upholding socially responsible values," including environmental sustainability and respect for land rights, reports the New York Times. "But documents show that TIAA-CREF’s forays into the Brazilian agricultural frontier may have gone in another direction."

Former Oklahoma state attorney general Drew Edmonson is leading a newly formed coalition of groups in opposition to a right-to-farm amendment to the state constitution.

Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack says he will suggest at the annual U.S.-China trade meeting that Beijing should lift its ban on imports of U.S. poultry, imposed earlier this year when an epidemic of deadly avian influenza hit poultry flocks in the western half of the nation.

Environmental groups went to court in Canada in a bid to block a government-approved plan to produce genetically engineered salmon eggs in Canada for shipment to Panama, where they would grow into fish, says the Guardian.

Days after the United States threatened to suspend favorable agricultural trade rules, South Africa and America reached an agreement that will pave the way to imports of up to 65,000 tonnes of U.S. poultry meat, says news site AllAfrica.

Senate Agriculture chairman Pat Roberts told Feedstuffs he is "working overtime to reach a compromise" to repeal mandatory country-of-origin labeling (COOL) on cuts of beef and pork. But Roberts said he lacks a majority on the committee needed for an outright repeal of the labeling law.

Seven environmental and consumer groups say the government's overhaul of its biotechnology regulations should result in mandatory labeling of food made with genetically modified organisms.

A retired USDA meat inspector "is joining forces with critics who say that a trial high-speed hog processing system piloted by USDA is a food safety nightmare," reports Food Safety News.