The history of the current dispute between Mexico and the U.S. over genetically modified corn has roots much deeper than the presidential decree that set it off. Opposition to GMO crops in Mexico has simmered for twenty years, born of worries that ancient landrace varieties of corn that are central to the country’s social, cultural and economic well-being would be lost. <strong>(No paywall)</strong>

Boosted by large increases in most sales categories, U.S. farm exports mushroomed to a record $196.4 billion in the fiscal year that ended Sept. 30, according to newly released Commerce Department data.

Pennsylvania Sen. Bob Casey says modifications to three USDA conservation programs will help organic farmers get established. A member of the Senate Agriculture Committee, Casey said with demand on the rise for organic food, "we must do all we can to help American farmers and ranchers meet this demand."

The maximum payment through the Environmental Quality Incentive Program will rise to $450,000 from the current $300,000, said USDA ahead of publishing an interim final rule that would incorporate changes made by the 2014 farm law.

More than $4 million in funding and expert advice will be provided to farmers and ranchers in five Midwestern states, to improve habitat for honey bees, a valuable crop pollinator that suffers high mortality rates.

$100,000 NAS Prize in Food and Agriculture Sciences. The prize, to recognize "a mid-career scientist at a U.S. institution who has made contribution" to the fields, would join the $250,000 World Food Prize as a prestigious award for work in food and agriculture.

David Hodson, senior scientist with the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT), sat down with FERN editor-in-chief Sam Fromartz in Washington to discuss the re-emergence of rust disease, a virulent fungal pathogen that attacks wheat plants and causes devastating crop losses, especially in poorer countries.

President Obama tapped Pamela Anderson, of the Gates Foundation, and Gebisa Ejeta, the 2009 winner of the World Food Prize, to serve on the Board for International Food and Agricultural Development.

The Gates Foundation is to announce its goals for the next 15 years. "Among them: financing programs to help Africa feed itself," says the New York Times.

President Biden selected law professor Margo Schlanger, a longtime civil rights advocate, to serve as assistant secretary for civil rights at the USDA, said the White House on Thursday.

Responding to dairy industry petitions, the USDA said it would open a hearing on Aug. 23 on possible changes to the complex Federal Milk Marketing Order system that sets the price farmers get for fresh milk.

Amid an ongoing dairy crisis, the former commissioner of agriculture for New Hampshire is closing his 48-year-old dairy farm in Meriden. While Steve Taylor will no longer produce milk, he will continue to make cheese and maple products.

Illinois will encourage the adoption of no-till farming while Minnesota aims to restore 10,000 acres of degraded peatlands with their share of $931 million awarded to agricultural and natural lands projects by the Environmental Protection Agency on Monday. The money is part of $4.3 billion in Climate Pollution Reduction grants for 25 projects in 30 states.

A variety of USDA programs will be tapped to provide $328 million in technical and financial assistance to improve water quality and restore coastal ecosystems over three years on agricultural land in the Gulf of Mexico area, said USDA. The strategy calls for conservation improvements on 3.2 million acres of high-priority land in 200 counties and parishes.

Just 3 percent of California's crop land is in no-till, compared to a national average of 35 percent, says Comstock's business magazine, based in Sacramento, citing UC Davis research.

David "Mas" Matsumoto says he farms with ghosts, says producer Lisa Morehouse. On his family’s organic peach, nectarine and grape farm south of Fresno, he points out pruning scars from long-time workers, and walks down rows of trees he planted with his father. He says the labor and lessons of his ancestors are in the soil and the grapevines and orchards, and he’s passing these on to the next generations, Morehouse says in FERN's latest audio report produced in collaboration with KQED's The California Report. <strong>No paywall</strong>

For years, the crop subsidy limit has been $125,000 a year per farmer. Given a free hand on subsidies, Americans would keep the limit roughly the same, though they would give small family farms an extra bit of help, said a trio of analysts on Thursday.

Iowa owes its incredibly productive soil to the prairie—the same prairie that farmers have spent decades ripping out, says The Washington Post. Midwestern growers were long instructed to destroy native grasslands in order to make room for row crops. But a new program called STRIPS (Science-based Trials of Rowcrops Integrated with Prairie Strips) hopes to convince the state’s farmers that they can decrease soil erosion and fertilizer runoff by planting native grasslands in between their regular crops.

In parts of California, the historic drought is creating a new breed of wildfire that burns so hot that the scorched soil left behind erodes instead of reseeds, says Lisa Morehouse, who reported on one farming community’s efforts to revive its land after last year’s 70,000-acre Butte Fire. The story was co-produced by FERN and KQED’s The California Report.

An analysis by the University of Sheffield in Britain calculates that "nearly 33% of the world’s adequate or high-quality food-producing land has been lost ... due to erosion or pollution in the past 40 years, with potentially disastrous consequences as global demand for food soars," said the Guardian.

In the newly published book, "Understanding Mountain Soils," the FAO calls for attention to sustainable management of the soils, which are "home to a vast array of human activities ranging from quinoa cultivation in the Andes through European ski resorts to the collection of medicinal plants in Tajikistan's 'roof of the world' Pamir range."

Following Donald Trump's election as president, "a sizable share of college admission directors say they have intensified efforts to recruit in rural areas and find more white students from low-income families," says the Washington Post, based on a survey by Inside Higher Ed. "His campaign capitalized on heavy support from rural America and from white voters without college degrees — sectors of the population many colleges historically have struggled to reach."

Poor children growing up in three out of four rural counties — especially in the Great Plains — are more likely to earn more than the national average by the age of 26 than their counterparts in cities, says a national study by Stanford economist Raj Chetty. Just 29 percent of kids in densely populated urban centers earn more than the national average as adults.

A proud refrain of American agriculture is "we feed the world" of many nations and cultures although U.S. farmers are overwhelmingly white men. Kendall Lamkey, chairman of the department of agronomy at Iowa State University, is trying to diversify the sector by attracting students "from a wider pool – from cities and suburbs, and from minority groups," says the NPR blog, The Salt.

Only 29 percent of college-age rural Americans are enrolled in college, far below the 47 percent rate of urban residents aged 18-24, says the New York Times, despite high graduation rates for rural high schools. "Given election results that turned up the volume on the concerns of rural Americans ... higher education leaders are now talking about how to reach the hard-to-get-to."

The government's worker-safety agency "has been prevented from using its full range of tools to protect workers from Covid-19," said President-elect Biden on the 50th anniversary of creation of the Occupational Safety and Health Act. "The number of OSHA inspectors is at its lowest level since 1975, while millions of essential workers are working to keep the country functioning through the pandemic."