Lawmakers in Mexico are ready to soften the groundbreaking one-peso-per-liter soda tax that took effect at the beginning of 2014 and is credited with reducing consumption of sugary drinks, says the Guardian. The finance commission in the lower house of Mexico's Congress approved a tax of one-half peso on low-calorie beverages as an incentive to drink companies to offer lower-calorie options.

A large majority of Iowans who intend to vote in the state's presidential caucuses say they favor a candidate who supports biofuels and the ethanol mandate, reports the Des Moines Register. The results come from a poll commissioned by America's Renewable Future and DuPont.

Decrying "cheating by foreign countries," House Agriculture chairman Michael Conaway called for tougher action to protect U.S. exports. "Things must change. Our agreements must be enforced," said Conaway at a hearing on international trade as the World Trade Organization tries to wrap up the long-running Doha Round of negotiations.

The modern-day cowboys who use pickup trucks and trailers to steal cattle off the range often resort to rustling in order to buy drugs, Oklahoma authorities tell Reuters.

The Liberal Party won an outright majority with 54 percent of the seats in Canada's House of Commons, routing the Conservatives who had been in power for nearly a decade. At Western Producer, columnist Ed White says, "There’s one big, positive take-home for Canadian farmers: TPP has been preserved."

Four environmental and food groups launched a campaign to make food policy an element of the presidential campaign as a step toward assuring that the next president is committed to reform. "Candidates need to realize that food is a big issue," said food writer Mark Bittman.

Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton could feel some "presidency heartburn" in Iowa and New Hampshire, the states that open the nominating process, because of her position on three issues, says political analyst Matt Baron in The Hill newspaper.

Schools that serve locally grown food and that offer hands-on activities such as school gardens or cooking classes are likely to report higher participation in the school lunch program and less wasted food, says the USDA.

Soybean futures prices fell 18 percent over a two-month period this summer before rebounding by 9 percent, writes economist Darrel Good of U-Illinois, who says "soybean prices may continue to trade in the wide range of the past three months."

The WTO has pushed back the date for its decision on whether Canada and Mexico can impose sanctions on the United States because of its meat labeling rules, says the Canadian Cattlemen's Association in its newsletter.

An invasive plant, Old World bluestem grasses, is spreading in the Flint Hills of eastern Kansas, jeopardizing grassland for cattle and overwhelming the plants that provide seeds, fruits and insects that are the diet of birds such as prairie chickens, said the Wichita Eagle.

The Chinese biotech company BGI plans to sell pigs that are genetically modified to grow to about 33 pounds as pets, reports the Los Angeles Times. "The pint-size porkers were created through a process known as gene editing" that prevents cells from receiving a signal to grow.

With 2015 in its final months, U.S. pork production, in a rebound from the porcine epidemic diarrhea virus, is 8-percent larger than a year ago and broiler chicken production is up by 4 percent, says the monthly Livestock, Dairy and Poultry Outlook.

Central America and Haiti are suffering one of the worst droughts in decades due in part to the strong El Niño weather pattern, "with small-scale farmers sustaining heavy losses in staple crop production," says the Famine Early Warning Network (FEWS NET) created by USAID.

Apple orchards in New York state, with only a handful of weekends to sell this year's crop, lure customers with pony rides, "bounce houses," cider doughnuts, "wines and crafts, as well as weekend events that bear little connection to their agricultural heritage," says the New York Times.

Corn is the staple crop of Mexico, consumed at the rate of nearly a pound per day per person, mostly as tortillas. So a court decision in August that repealed a ban on GMO corn resounded among activists and chefs, says Vice.

The Bureau of Prisons, which eliminated pork from the menu at U.S. prisons, "put pork roast back on the prison bill of fare," says the Washington Post.

The United States is the world's leading beef producer and also imports more beef than any other nation, says a special article in Livestock and Poultry: World Markets and Trade.