By Tuesday night, former Rep Ronnie Childers "could suddenly become one of the party’s vitally important Senate candidates for 2014 – and a rare Democratic nominee who clashes sharply with his national...

"McDonald’s has chosen Canada over Australia and Europe as the site of its first pilot project in its ambitious quest to serve only “sustainable beef” in its massive global restaurant empire," says the Alberta Farmer.

A per-calorie tax on sugary beverages would be more effective than a tax per ounce, says a study based on the size of the bottle, says a study published in the American Journal of Agricultural Economics.

First Lady Michelle Obama will fight for healthier school meals and the White House has made the issue a top priority, senior nutrition policy advisor Sam Kass told supporters, according to Obama Foodorama.

The Agriculture Department awarded $6 million to educate farmers about subsidies available in the new farm law and said enrollment would begin this summer for the new Margin Protection Program for dairy. Grain and soybean growers will make a key decision this winter - selecting either the insurance-like Agriculture Risk Coverage program or the Price Loss Coverage program, a more traditional approach, as their safety net through the 2018 crops.

Passage of a referendum that bans GMO crops in Jackson County, Ore, "deepened a cultural chasm in the greater Rogue Valley" over the direction of agriculture, says the Portland Oregonian. Opponents say the ban threatens their livelihoods and blame newcomer organic farmers.

U.S. farm exports will hit a record $149.5 billion in the year ending on Sept 30, up 5 percent from the previous estimate due to higher corn, wheat and soybean prices as well as larger export tonnage, said USDA in a quarterly report. The record now is $140.9 billion, set in fiscal 2013.

The methane digester on a Wisconsin dairy farm is the jumping off point for a two-page New York Times story on ways to harness the free market to reduce greenhouse gases. The digester was built with money from a California initiative.

The Washington Post says, "At stake in the argument over lunch menus, beyond the natural tension between nutrition and children’s taste buds, are the profits of several large food companies that sell frozen pizzas, french fries and other prepared foods to schools." The story looks at how the new menu rules play out in schools around the nation.

The government says wildfires have burned nearly 700,000 acres this year. That's three times the acreage at this point in 2013 but 40 percent less than the 10-year average for the first five months of the year, according to the National Interagency Fire Center. It lists 21,530 fires since Jan 1. The average is 26,667 fires.

The committees that oversee federal spending agree on a ban on horse slaughter in the United States. House appropriators voted, 28-22, for the ban on as part of their USDA funding bill. The Senate Appropriations Committee added similar language to its USDA bill on a 18-12 vote a week ago. The prohibition was a routine part of the bills since 2006 but was omitted in fiscal 2013.

A Republican proposal to give hard-pressed schools a one-year waiver from school lunch reforms is headed for a floor vote in the House with predictions of more turmoil to come. "This is poison," warned Sam Farr, a senior Democrat on the Appropriations Committee. "It will tie up the whole ag appropriations bill." Farr lost on a party-line vote, 29-22, when he tried to delete the waiver during a four-hour committee markup.

In a report titled "Ethanol's Broken Promise," the Environmental Working Group says the scaled-back ethanol mandate proposed by EPA "would lower U.S. greenhouse gas emissions by the equivalent of 3 million tons of carbon dioxide (CO2e) – as much as taking 580,000 cars off the road for a year." EWG says its figures take into account the effect of bringing more land into crop production.

Some 217 rural counties are among the nation’s top “creative-class” counties, says the Daily Yonder. They rank in the top 25 percent of counties in percentage of workers in fields such as the arts, architecture and engineering.

The Republican Senate primary election in Mississippi "has become the nastiest, and most personal, in the nation," says the New York Times with one week left until election day. The race between six-term incumbent Thad Cochran, the Republican leader on the Senate Agriculture Committee, and state Sen Chris McDaniel "represents the last chance for Tea Party activists to topple an incumbent."

Supporters and opponents of immigration reform cranked up the pressure on House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, says Roll Call, "with less than two weeks to go before a closely watched primary race and the clock steadily ticking down on the 113th Congress."

The number of beginning farmers - those in agriculture for less than 10 years - is down by 20 percent in the new Census of Agriculture. Nine states had more beginning farmers in 2012 than in 2007 while the rest showed a decline, says the National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition in a blog.

The Knoxville, Tenn, schools face an additional $900,000 in breakfast costs next year because of federal regulations to serve more produce, nutrition director Jonathan Dickl said ahead of a potentially key House Appropriations Committee meeting. Dickl spoke in favor of a proposed one-year waiver for some schools from requirements to serve more nutritious meals.

The government is pledging $1.2 billion for the new Regional Conservation Partnership Program that could leverage an equal amount of money from private companies, local communities and others. The program was created as part of the 2014 farm bill. "This is going to be focused on measurable results," said Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack.

Six pro-reform groups say "Speaker John Boehner and the House have a real window of opportunity to pass lasting immigration reform legislation by August." In a statement, the groups say they will press the House for action and ask the White House to delay issuing any executive orders on immigration until the fall. “We know that House leaders can act. We know that nothing stands in their way. The time is now," said the groups.