The Mississippi Republican Party chairman, Joe Nosef, says there is too little time to examine all the materials in the party's contested Senate run-off election and told challenger Chris McDaniel to go court instead, says the Los Angeles Times.

President Vladimir Putin issued a decree that bans or reduces for one year imports of food and agricultural products from countries that have imposed sanctions on Russia in the crisis over Ukraine. "The Kremlin decree doesn't specify which items will be affected," said the BBC.

Russian President Putin says his country should retaliate against economic sanctions imposed by the West in the crisis over Ukraine, steps that could affect...

Commodity prices will tumble if U.S. farmers harvest record corn and soybean crops this fall, says Farm Futures.

Children and teenagers are eating more fruit than in the past but still don't consume as much fruit and vegetables as recommended, say scientists at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

During a speech to the U.S.-Africa Business Forum, President Obama summarized $33 billion in new investment in the continent and said stable societies with forward-looking governments would be the foundation for economic growth.

India surpassed the United States as the second-largest cotton producer eight years ago and now is on the heels of China as the world leader, says USDA.

Japanese and U.S. negotiators "continued to make some progress in narrowing the gaps on treatment of a range of agricultural products," said the U.S. trade representative's office at the end of two days of discussions.

Missouri voters narrowly approved a state constitutional amendment guaranteeing the right to farm, said the Saint Louis Post-Dispatch.

Sen Pat Roberts, a senior member of the Senate Agriculture Committee, won the Republican nomination for his fourth term, beating Tea Party challenger Milton Wolf, 48-41.

The U.S. corn and soybean crops are in phenomenally good shape for the first week of August, said the weekly Crop Progress report, despite dry July weather in the western Corn Belt.

With 8,268 listings in the National Farmers Markets Directory, USDA is creating three new directories for local food marketing. The new catalogs will cover Community Supported Agriculture projects, food hubs and...

The refrain of "The Iowa Corn Song" - " We're from I-o-way, I-o-way, That's where the tall corn grows" - could be rewritten to say, "That's where the corn yields grow."

The 2008-09 recession drove up food stamp enrollment by 19 million people, with the major increases clustered in regions with the greatest dislocation, such as Arizona, Florida, Michigan, and Nevada, rather than...

In Missouri, the top agriculture issue is a constitutional amendment to create a "right to farm." Says the New York Times, "The debate over the proposed amendment has roiled Missouri for more than a year, with supporters saying it would end what they see as meddling by outsiders in its business practices.

Some 15 million tons of Iowa's topsoil washed into waterways from Iowa fields in the first half of this year, says the Environmental Working Group in a report that calls for more erosion-prevention work.

The United States is hosting a three day summit with leaders of four dozen nations in Africa that focuses " largely on the economic potential that Africa offers the United States - provided that the two can solve ongoing problems around electricity supply, agriculture, security threats and democratic governance," says the Washington Post.

U.S. farmers will harvest the first 14-billion-bushel corn crop this fall, breaking the record for corn production by half-a-billion bushels, say estimates from two major companies according to Reuters.

USDA set a 35-day public comment period on how to comply with an appellate court decision for release of records showing a retailer's food stamp sales.

Researchers are finding more intersex fish and in more widespread parts of the Chesapeake Bay watershed, says the Washington Post.