Farm-gate prices for corn, soybeans and wheat, the three most widely planted crops in the country, "have declined sharply from record levels set in recent years and no quick price recovery is expected," says the University of Missouri think tank FAPRI in an update of its agricultural baseline.

Michael Schläppi, a molecular biologist at Marquette University, "is experimenting with growing rice in the Midwest," says the NPR blog The Salt.

The government plans to pro-rate subsidy payments for 2014, 2015 and 2016 grain and soybean crops, says economist Art Barnaby of Kansas State U at the Ag Manager website.

Both Monsanto, the giant seed company, or Stonyfield Farm, the organic yogurt company, "have aggressively recruited academic researchers" to carry their banner in the tussle over labeling foods made with genetically modified organisms, says the New York Times.

Half a century after the 1965 grape strike, Cesar Chavez is the most familiar face of the farmworker movement, says KQED in a story by Lisa Morehouse that calls attention to the pivotal role of Filipino-Americans, led by Larry Itliong, who actually started the strike in Delano, in the Central Valley.

Political reporters from newspapers in Chico and Sacramento, California, and Reno, Nevada, collaborated on a list of “10 issues that the presidential candidates absolutely need to discuss but probably won’t.” The “F-word” -- as in food -- comes in at number four.

In a new survey by the U.S. Farmers and Ranchers Alliance, a public-relations arm of the Farm Bureau and commodity groups, fewer than half of respondents agreed with the statement, “The way that most of today’s farming and ranching operations in the U.S. grow and raise food meets the standards of sustainability.”

This spring the Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza epidemic tore through poultry farms across 15 U.S. states, leading to the death of 48 million birds. The bulk of those were egg-laying hens, though turkey production was affected, too.

The USDA announced today that Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack will continue his campaign for reauthorization of the Child Nutrition Act, otherwise known as the Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act, with a speech at the National Press Club on September 8.

The Washington Post’s Roberto Ferdman reported Thursday on the launch of a new advertising campaign targeting the fast-casual restaurant chain Chipotle. Kicking off with a full-page ad in the New York Post, the campaign, funded by the Center for Consumer Freedom, chastises Chipotle for selling high-calorie fare while marketing itself as a healthy alternative.

Writing in the National Review on Monday, Windsor Mann castigated presidential candidate and Florida Sen. Marco Rubio for defending the federal sugar program.

A series of emails obtained under the Freedom of Information Act paint an unflattering picture of the American Egg Board’s campaign against a startup plant-based food company.

The USDA’s recent estimate of a 36-percent decline in net farm income from 2014 to 2015 due to low grain prices has the agriculture sector on edge.

Politico’s Helena Bottemiller Evich examined how food companies that were once fighting healthier school-nutrition standards are now embracing them because of profits derived from churning out healthier fare.

Sen. Claire McCaskill, on a tour earlier this week of a research farm in Columbia, Missouri, criticized GMO opponents and said she wouldn’t tolerate bias against GMOs in federally funded ag research, according to the Missourian.

Reporter Lisa Hamilton traveled to a remote corner of Australia to shadow a team of researchers looking to “collect, decode, and define” a hardier strain of wild rice that could help them save what Hamilton calls “the daily sustenance of the world’s poor.”

EPA surveys have shown that chemicals draining from crop fields have become the leading source of pollution in U.S. rivers and lakes. Because many municipalities source drinking water from these rivers and lakes, the issue has gotten contentious.

Speaking before the Center of American Progress yesterday, USDA Secretary Tom Vilsack dismissed criticism that the Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act placed too large a financial burden on school districts.

The USDA’s new rental survey showed that access to land is increasingly becoming a barrier for beginning farmers.