The proposed 24-acre West Louisville Food Hub, with an expected cost of $45 million, would combine urban renewal in a distressed neighborhood of Louisville, KY, with local food marketing, says Civil Eats.

A combined $9.6 million will go into grants to support production of advanced biofuels and the bio-economy, said the Agriculture Department. The largest block of money, $5.6 million, was divided among...

USDA won't proceed with its proposal for a new and separate beef checkoff program, said Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack in DTN interview, acceding to congressional opposition.

Deere and Co, the world's largest equipment maker, said it reached definitive agreement to sell its crop insurance unit to Farmers Mutual Hail Insurance Co., of West Des Moines, Iowa.

The Agriculture Department distributed $200 million in cost-sharing funds to 84 organizations to promote U.S. farm exports and to build markets for the products overseas.

Two weeks of rainy and snowy weather "has provided California a foothold for drought recovery but three straight winters of subnormal precipitation will take time, possibly several consecutive wet winters to recharge the reservoir levels and...

Studies tend to show limited results from putting calorie counts on restaurant and fast-food menus, says Emily Oster, associate economics professor at Brown.

"The most profitable year on record" for hog producers "will be 2014 with estimated profits of near $55 a head," says economist Chris Hurt of Purdue.

Coca-Cola, a giant in the world of soda and other bottled beverages, will launch a brand-name, premium milk, called Fairlife, in 2015, says Bloomberg.

The developer of biotech corn and soybean varieties that tolerate 2,4-D and glyphosate pesticides said it is putting restriction on sales of the seeds to prevent the crops from moving into the marketing channel, said Reuters.

The House Rules Committee cleared for a floor vote a bill to revive five dozen tax incentives that expired at the start of this year. The House is scheduled to vote today.

At the International Conference on Nutrition meeting in Rome, senior officials from 170 nations "made a number of concrete commitments and adopted a series of recommendations on policies and investments aimed at ensuring that all people have access to healthier and more sustainable diets," says the UN Food and Agriculture Organization.

Measured on a per-acre basis, capital purchases, such as machinery and buildings, by grain farmers have more than tripled, says economist Gary Schnitkey of U-Illinois, who warns farmers will have to tighten their belts.

The Chevrolet division of General Motors purchased credits for a 40,000 ton reduction in carbon dioxide emissions from ranchland in the "prairie pothole" region of North Dakota.

A hand recount of the vote on whether to require labels on GMO foods in Oregon began in 19 of the state's 36 counties on Tuesday, said the Salem Statesman Journal.

The world's largest farm equipment maker, Deere and Co, says, "Equipment net sales in the United States and Canada decreased 10 percent for the quarter and 8 percent for the year" in a report on this year's business.

The federally subsidized crop insurance system is skewed toward large-scale growers of crops such as corn and soybeans, says the Land Stewardship Project in the second of three white papers on the program.

U.S. net farm income will plummet by 21 percent this year, the government forecast, a much steeper drop than its August estimate of 14 percent points.

With California seeing its first major rainstorm of the season, the Los Angeles Times said, "Scientists have yet to determine whether the Eastern Pacific is falling into an El Niño pattern and will produce a wetter than average year...