The Porcine Epidemic Diarrhea Virus, which has killed 8 million piglets, could surge again in the fall, "likely killing another 2.5 million pigs over the next 12 months and amplifying an increase in pork prices," says Reuters.

Farmland prices fell for the seventh month in a row in the Rural Mainstreet Index compiled by Creighton University, but at a slower rate.

The House would be limited to considering eight specified amendments under the terms proposed by the Rules Committee for debate of the CFTC reauthorization bill.

Sanjaya Rajaram, who worked with Nobel laureate Norman Borlaug and developed 480 wheat varieties, is the winner of the $250,000 World Food Prize for 2014.

A court decision in Maine over unlicensed sale of milk by a small farmer may carry implications for food sovereignty advocates.

Energy crops may be best suited for planting on marginal land or in Southeastern states when compared to likely earnings from corn and soybeans, the two most widely grown U.S. crops, say two researchers from the University of Illinois.

Senators voted, 95-3, to limit debate in the run-up to work on a "minibus" that includes the fiscal 2015 funding for the Agriculture Department.

Gerbert Oosterlaken, a Dutch hog farmer, says in a Modern Farmer story, “I don’t need to take antibiotics every day. There’s no reason my pigs should either.”

Prospects for "historically large" world wheat supplies are likely to result in "a challenging situation for U.S. wheat exports and prices later in 2014," say economists Dan O'Brien and Mykel Taylor of Kansas State University.

The winter wheat harvest, at 16 percent complete, is running 4 points behind average, says the weekly Crop Progress report.

Voters in Oregon agree by a 3-to-1 margin that foods made with genetically modified organisms should be labeled, says a poll commissioned by a Portland television station.

Landowners enrolled in the Conservation Stewardship Program, which pays farmers to practice soil, water and wildlife conservation as part of their daily operations, will have two months to apply for a renewal of their contract, says a USDA bulletin.

Two co-founders of the Center for Watershed Sciences at UC-Davis "calculate that the chances of another winter with below-average precipitation to be nearly three in four" for California, says the science blog at KQED in San Francisco.

That's how Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack summed up U.S. and EU differences on so-called geographic indicators, the names that tie a food to its home area, whether it's Vidalia onions from Georgia or sparkling wine from the Champagne region of France.

The U.S. House may take up reauthorization of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission this week. It is one of two major bills on the agenda; the other is the Defense Department appropriations bill for fiscal 2015.

States in the Chesapeake Bay region made progress in controlling water pollution from agriculture and communities but many jurisdictions are short of goals, says the Associated Press in summarizing...

Consumer Reports announced a campaign today to bar the use of the word "natural" on food products. There is no way at present to verify "natural" and Consumer Reports say its nationwide poll shows shoppers...

Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack is on a whirlwind tour of Europe this week with the goal of expanding trans-Atlantic agricultural trade.

Increasingly, veterinarians prefer to practice in cities rather than rural areas, says a paper at the Center for Agricultural and Rural Development.

First Lady Michelle Obama told a gathering of middle school students at the White House, "I'm going to fight until the bitter end to make sure that every kid in this country continues to have the best nutrition that they can have in our schools."