Despite a late, wet and chilly planting season, the U.S. corn crop is in prime condition. "U.S. crop conditions in the most recent Crop Progress report are the best in four years for the aggregated 18 reported states...

The Senate Agriculture Committee opened work on reauthorization of child nutrition programs, including school lunch, with a 90-minute hearing that hailed the role of good nutrition in academic success and long-term health.

In an interview with AgWeb, Pamela Anderson, director of agriculture development for the Gates Foundation, describes the foundation's strategy on agricultural research and food security.

Ethanol makers have enjoyed a run of high profits since March 2013, "driven by a combination of steady or rising ethanol prices and falling corn prices," write economists Scott Irwin and Darrel Good at farmdoc daily.

The House won't vote until next week at the earliest on the headline issues for the Agriculture Department funding bill - a waiver of school lunch reforms for some schools and adding whilte potatoes to the WIC food basket.

For the first time, antibiotic-resistant bacteria were found in food - raw squid - "widening the potential exposure for consumers," said the Washington Post, based on a report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The U.S. winter wheat crop will be the smallest in eight years due to drought in the central and southern Plains, the government said, estimating a harvest of 1.38 billion bushels, 2 percent less than it forecast in May and 10 percent smaller than 2013.

Foes hope to shorten the lifetime of the country-of-origin meat labeling law with help of the Agriculture Department funding bill pending in the House.

The president of the National Parent Teacher Association, Otha Thornton, is among witnesses scheduled for a Senate Agriculture Committee hearing on child nutrition programs today at 10 a.m. ET.

Gov Jerry Brown asked Californians to cut water consumption by 20 percent in the face of widespread drought. Five months later, the San Francisco Chronicle says voluntary conservation has yielded small results in the Bay area.

The U.S. soybean stockpile is expected to shrivel to its smallest size in 10 years - less than a two-week supply - by late summer ahead of a record-large harvest that will saturate supplies and sharply pull down prices for the oilseed, according to trade expectations for the crop report today.

The defeat of House Majority Leader Eric Cantor in a Republican primary in Virginia "could have major implications for an immigration overhaul," says the New York Times.

Rulemaking for this year's ethanol mandate "has been more time-consuming than originally anticipated," says the Environmental Protection Agency.

The Obama administration announced the "Local Food, Local Places" project to provide expert advice to rural communities to use local food systems as an engine for economic growth.

Only 7 percent of Americans believe the U.S. immigration system is "generally working," says a survey by the Brookings Institution and the Public Religion Research Institute.

Over-application of nitrogen fertilizer results in a larger than previously estimated release of nitrous oxide, one of three major greenhouse gases, says research by Michigan State University appearing in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Chinese quarantine officials are barring imports of distillers dried grains from the United States because they may contain a genetically modified organism that is not approved by China, said Reuters.

In response to customer pressure, Cargill "intends to phase out all individual stalls from its...hog production system by the end of 2017," says the Minneapolis Star-Tribune.

The House could begin debate this week on the Agriculture Department funding bill for the fiscal year that opens on Oct 1, says Majority Leader Eric Cantor's office.

Participation in food stamps, the major U.S. antihunger program, is down for the fitfth month in a row, say USDA data. Some 46.1 million people received food stamps at latest count, down 3 percent since October.