The turkey farm that suffered the first outbreak of avian influenza in Minnesota is back in production, says the Associated Press. The Pope County farm was re-stocked with fowl on Sunday.

Ahead of regulations that would require restaurants and fast-food to provide information such as calorie counts for their offerings, USDA researchers examined the impact of information now being given voluntarily by vendors. An Economic Research Service bulletin, "Consumers' use of nutrition information when eating out," says people who eat out frequently are less likely to use nutrition information at restaurants than those who dine out more often.

The United States is frustrated with Canada "because it believes Ottawa promised greater foreign access to its dairy and poultry markets as a condition of joining" the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade talks, "and yet has offered nothing," reports the Toronto Globe and Mail.

A coalition of nine environmental and consumer groups says it submitted more than 500,000 comments in opposition to a Dow weedkiller that combines the herbicides glyphosate and 2,4-D. The Environmental Protection Agency says it hopes to make a final decision later this year, "perhaps by late summer or early fall," on the Enlist Duo weedkiller. It tentatively has decided the herbicide is safe for use.

If Monsanto pulls off a merger with Syngenta, a leader in one of the remaining major agrochemical companies expects an industry-wide overhaul of strategy, said Bloomberg.

In northern Minnesota, a second-generation farmer "is putting a modern twist on an old-fashioned idea that could help scale up the local food economy in the region," says Civil Eats.

Chinese agricultural leaders are to meet members of the UN-backed Agricultural Market Information System, created after food prices surged worldwide in 2008, to discuss access to data on Chinese grain stockpiles, says AgriMoney.

Corn and soybean growers may see negative returns on their crops for the first time since 2000, estimates economist Gary Schnitkey of U-Illinois. At farmdoc daily, Schnitkey computes likely crop revenue and production costs for a typical farm in central Illinois with higher-yielding land. "Farmer returns have come down from high levels in 2012 to lower levels in 2013, to (projected) negative levels in 2014," he says.

The FDA order to foodmakers to phase out artificial trans fats "will create opportunities for Canada's canola sector, especially high oleic varieties," says Commodity News Service Canada.

Chinese and Russian investors are collaborating to build a 100,000-cow dairy - the largest in the world - in northeast China to supply milk and cheese to the Russian market, says Farmers Weekly, based in England.

A plant scientist from the Land Institute in Kansas is developing a perennial grain, Kernza, from intermediate wheatgrass, says Civil Eats. "And there's a widespread team of researchers hoping their work will pave the way for an entirely new form of food."

Two-thirds of rural Americans without health insurance live in states that decided against an expansion of Medicaid, the Daily Yonder said, based on material from the Kaiser Family Foundation. For urban residents, half of the uninsured in states that did not expand Medicaid, a lower rate. The uninsured rate is 18 percent for both rural and urban areas, with 47 million people lacking health insurance, says the Yonder.

Larger U.S. food and ag exports to Cuba are not assured despite President Obama's decision to normalize diplomatic relations and take steps to facilitate the sales, which must be made on the basis of cash in advance, say USDA economists.

The Just Label It campaign for mandatory labeling of food made with genetically modified organisms "rolled out a trio of academics on Wednesday in a bid to raise public awareness of the public health and environmental costs of herbicides used in the production of genetically engineered crops," said Agri-Pulse.

The drought in California has a potential upside - less water means more flavorful wine, says public radio KPCC in Pasadena. A winemaker in Napa, Stephanie Honig, says this could be a banner year for California wine.

South Korea and the United States agreed to a streamlined system of trade for processed organic products, including condiments, cereal, baby food, frozen meals, milk and alcoholic beverages, effective on Tuesday. The agreement says each country accepts that organic products from the other country meet the importing country's standards.

In his encyclical on the environment, Pope Francis devotes a section to genetic modification (GM) of crops and livestock. "The risks involved are not always due to the techniques used, but rather to their improper or excessive application," says the pope.