The House Agriculture Committee pointed to spending cuts enacted as part of the 2014 farm law, and asked the Budget Committee to look to the other 98 percent of the federal budget for savings. "From our perspective, we believe the Committee on Agriculture has done its part for now with respect to deficit reduction," says a letter approved on a voice vote by committee members. The farm law called for $23 billion in savings and the committee says the savings "remain intact."

House and Senate sponsors announced a new drive in Congress to require labels on food made with genetically modified organisms. "Consumers have a right to know what is in the foods they eat," said California Sen. Barbara Boxer, one of the lead sponsors of the legislation. Oregon Rep. Peter DeFazio, the lead sponsor in the House, said, "If food manufacturers stand by their product and the technology they use to make it, they should have no problem disclosing that information to consumers."

"Good" farmland declined in value by 3 percent in the central Corn Belt during 2014, "marking the first yearly decline since 1986," said the Chicago Federal Reserve Bank, based on a survey of bankers. The largest decline was 7 percent in Iowa. "Half of the respondents expected farmland values to fall during the January through March period of 2015," said the Chicago Fed in its quarterly Ag Letter. Only 1 percent of lenders "remained hopeful that farmland values would rise in the areas surrounding their respective banks."

Indiana Rep. Jackie Walorksi, who chairs the House Agriculture subcommittee on nutrition, said she plans a "full-scale review" of the food stamp program. "It is intended to be a thoughtful review," she said in her first remarks about the undertaking. Walorski, who joined the Agriculture Committee this year, said the program should protect vulnerable populations of Americans while being prudent with taxpayer dollars.

For weeks, the ag world has buzzed with rumors that the new edition of the Dietary Guidelines would downplay the role of meat in healthy diets or even delete red meat from its recommendations. The 2010 Guidelines say at one point, "Choose a variety of protein foods, which include seafood, lean meat and poultry, eggs, beans and peas, soy products, and unsalted nuts and seeds." House Agriculture Committee chairman Mike Conaway raised the issue with Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack, saying...

Hog farmers, long overshadowed by cattle producers, will expand production faster than the cattle industry, resulting in Americans eating more pork than beef in 2017, says the USDA in its long-term agricultural baseline. The department released the complete 97-page baseline on Tuesday; a trimmed-down version that covered crop projections was released in December. The USDA pegs pork consumption at 48.8 pounds per person in 2017 compared to 48.5 pounds of beef.

At the first House Agriculture Committee hearing of the year, chairman Mike Conaway told Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack, "With commodity markets plummeting and crop producers struggling to find financing, now is precisely the wrong time to weaken crop insurance." It was the latest rebuff from the farm sector of White House proposals to reduce crop insurance spending by 17 percent through a lower premium subsidy on revenue policies that insure the price at harvest time, and by adjusting payment rates for prevented-planting claims.

Five weeks into the year, the Agriculture Department declared natural disaster areas in nine states, from Idaho to California to Texas. In all, 256 counties - 8 percent of all counties in the nation - are eligible for low-interest agricultural loans and disaster relief programs, said the USDA. The weekly Drought Monitor says 28 percent of the contiguous United States is in drought, up nearly 2 points since the start of the year.

"School breakfast continues to make significant gains in communities across the United States," says the antihunger Food Research and Action Center, summarizing two new reports that it issued. FRAC says 53 percent of children who qualified for free or reduced-price school lunch also participated in school breakfast, up 1 percentage point from 2013 and 10 points higher than a decade ago.

CME Group, the operator of futures markets in Chicago and New York, said it will close most of its open outcry futures trading pits by July 2.

U.S. farm income will drop to its lowest level in six years under the weight of sharply lower crop prices and a plunge in milk prices, according to a forecast from the Agriculture Department. Net farm income, which reflects earnings from production in the current calendar year, would fall by 32 percent from 2014 levels. The USDA said another measure of the farm sector, net cash farm income, would slump by 22 percent, a smaller decline because it includes revenue from stocks carried over from last year.