The Salton Sea, created just over a century ago, "is now in danger of shrinking by half," says the Los Angeles Times. At 370 square miles it is the largest lake in California.

Nineteen consumer, environmental and animal welfare groups says the criteria proposed for a Sustainable Beef project are "fundamentally flawed" and fail to address issues such as use of antibiotics as a growth promotant in cattle.

Some 779 rural counties lost jobs since mid-2013, says USDA's Economic Research Service, compared to 1,206 that held steady or notched gains.

An official at Dow AgroSciences says the company decided to restrict sales of its new genetically engineered Enlist corn and soybeans after "extensive talks with U.S. grain leaders who fear roiling trade with China," says Reuters.

The AGree project, a multiyear endeavor to reach consensus among food and farm leaders, released a package of four papers that call for substantial remodeling of U.S. conservation, public nutrition and food aid programs as well as comprehensive immigration reform.

A spot-check of grocery store prices across the country says the cost of materials for Thanksgiving dinner is nearly unchanged for the fourth year in a row.

One result of Russia's ban on food imports from Europe and the United States is a surge in interest in domestic food producers, especially organic farms, says the New York Times in a story from Moscow.

A global temperature increase of close to 1.5 degrees Celsius "is already locked into the earth's atmospheric system by past and predicted greenhouse gas emissions," said the World Bank in releasing a report on likely impacts in three regions of the world.

The largest U.S. hunger-relief charity, Feeding America, says two out of five client households "have at least one member that has worked full-time but still utilize charitable food programs to make ends meet."

Migrant worker Veronica Jarmillo starts work at 7 a.m., picking apples during the two-month harvest season in Missouri, says Harvest Public Media in a story about farm laborers and their vital role in agriculture.

The government issued two regulations that require calories to be listed on menus in chain restaurants and similar outlets that sell prepared food and for vending-machine food.

Members of the European parliament approved a plan that would allow members of the European Union to ban genetically engineered crops within their borders even if the EU approves them, "raising the chance their use will remain limited on the continent," said Reuters.

Congressional efforts to provide drought relief to California farmers are dead for this year, according to Sen Dianne Feinstein, says the Associated Press.

The three-year-old AGree project on food and agriculture policy "is pivoting into action," said co-chair Gary Hirshberg during a "Future of Food" forum.

The Agriculture Department lowered its estimates of the corn and wheat crops marginally and raised its estimate of the soybean crop by 1 percent in its monthly crop report.

A University of Arizona survey of 77 studies, released in 2013, found "well-documented cases of field-evolved resistance to Bt crops in five major pests as of 2010, compared with only one case in 2005.

At the Agriculture Department, "more than 100 undercover agents pose as food stamp recipients at thousands of neighborhood stores to spot suspicious vendors and fraud," says the New York Times in a story about a significant expansion throughout the government of undercover work.

The new H5N8 avian influenza confirmed in Germany, the Netherlands and Britain "poses a significant threat to the poultry sector, especially in low-resourced counties situated along the Black Sea and East Atlantic migratory routes for wild birds", said two...