When lunchtime at school gets shorter, students eat less of their meals and discard more food, said the New York Times in summarizing a study of 1,000 children at six elementary and middle schools.

Fast-food giant McDonald's, which buys two billion eggs a year, equal to 4 percent of U.S. egg production, "will begin phasing out the use of eggs from hens housed in cages," said the New York Times, "a move that has significant implications for American and Canadian egg producers."

Both Monsanto, the giant seed company, or Stonyfield Farm, the organic yogurt company, "have aggressively recruited academic researchers" to carry their banner in the tussle over labeling foods made with genetically modified organisms, says the New York Times.

The Washington Post’s Roberto Ferdman reported Thursday on the launch of a new advertising campaign targeting the fast-casual restaurant chain Chipotle. Kicking off with a full-page ad in the New York Post, the campaign, funded by the Center for Consumer Freedom, chastises Chipotle for selling high-calorie fare while marketing itself as a healthy alternative.

U.S. demand for high-quality Mexican food, especially tortillas, "has created a small but growing market for the native, or landrace, corn that is central to to life" in the central plains of Oaxaca, reports the New York Times.

The government announced its National Seed Strategy to restore federal lands damaged by wildfire, drought, severe storms and invasive species with "appropriate seeds to help grow plant life and pollinator habitat."

There are about 1,750 seed banks around the world "that collect, store, regenerate and distribute crop varieties and their ancestors in perpetuity," says Ensia. There are literally millions of accessions.

Brazil's soybean belt is critically short of rainfall, in the view of consultancy Oil World, which sees a harvest of 89 million tonnes this season, said AgriMoney.

The Argentinian news portal Infobae says the government is considering whether to create a grain company of its own to compete with the multinational exporters - Cargill, ADM, Bunge and Dreyfus - who dominate farm exports, says AgroSouth News.

The U.S. soybean crop could be as much as 6 percent smaller than now forecast if yields drop slightly or if plantings turn out to be smaller than reported, say projections presented at a Kansas State University risk-management conference.

The Russian ban on food and ag products from Western nations including the United States is likely to mean more business for Brazil, says Reuters.

In FERN's latest story, produced with Switchyard Magazine, reporter Mya Frazier explores the damage—physical, economic, and emotional—done to Ohio's rural communities by the explosion of data centers and the electricity generation needed to power those centers.

Speaking at the largest farm gathering in the country, EPA administrator Michael Regan announced the creation of a new EPA office to expand two-way communication with farmers and rural communities. "With the launch of this new office, we are ensuring agricultural and rural stakeholders will have a seat at the table for many years to come," said Regan at the Commodity Classic in Houston.

The USDA announced an additional 60 days for public comment on a proposal that originated in the final weeks of the Trump administration to put USDA, rather than FDA, in charge of regulating livestock and poultry created through genetic engineering.

In its newest attempt to overhaul biotechnology rules adopted in 1987, the USDA said it would exempt new crop varieties created through techniques such as gene editing from regulatory review, so long as the modifications are similar to those achieved by traditional breeding and pose no plant-pest risks.

The former head of EPA's cancer assessment review committee, Jess Rowlands, advised European counterparts to disregard a study that linked cancer in mice to glyphosate, the most widely used weedkiller in the world, said The Guardian. It said court documents show that Rowlands "had previously told Monsanto he would try to block a U.S. inquiry into the issue."

Two managers of a Florida farm-labor contracting company are going to federal prison for their role in a multi-state racketeering and human trafficking scheme. Between 2015 and 2017, federal prosecutors say, the company forced more than a dozen workers on H-2A visas to harvest crops against their will, while paying them less than they were owed. <strong>(No paywall)</strong>

California Sen. Dianne Feinstein said she will work with fellow senators to give legal status to undocumented farmworkers and streamline the H-2A visa system for agricultural guestworkers. "It's time to give farmers the help they need and protect the essential workers who work hard to put food on our tables," said Feinstein, a senior member of the Senate Judiciary Committee.

To aid farmers worried about an imminent labor shortage, two federal departments said on Thursday that they will help farms find foreign and domestic workers who may be eligible to transfer from one agricultural employer to another. <strong>(No paywall)</strong>

The Idaho state Senate Judiciary Committee unanimously approved a bill that would allow prison inmates to work in all parts of agriculture, an expansion of the 2014 law that authorized prison labor in businesses that produce perishable foods.

The most popular way to eradicate wild hogs is to shoot them, whether on gaming ranches, in the wild or from the door of a helicopter. But hunting has done little to stem the estimated 6-9 million hogs running wild across at least 42 states and three territories, as Stephen R. Miller writes in FERN's latest story, produced in collaboration with National Geographic.<strong>(No paywall)</strong>

The USDA will begin tests in Texas and Alabama of a toxic sodium nitrate bait to kill feral swine, said USDA's Wildlife Services, which combats invasive animals. More than 6 million wild pigs roam parts of at least 35 states and cause an estimated $190 million in crop damage annually, says the USDA.

Aerial hog hunting is a booming, albeit niche, market in Texas, home to one-third of the six million wild hogs that cause millions of dollars in damage to U.S. crops and livestock annually, says Reuters.

The Biden administration is launching a portfolio of projects to reach its goal of net-zero emissions of greenhouse gases on the farm, including a new focus on climate mitigation by the Conservation Reserve Program, said Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack. During an Earth Day teleconference, he rejected the suggestion that carbon sequestration in the CRP was a form of greenwashing. <strong> (No paywall) </strong>

More than one-third of the world’s population lives in water-scarce regions, and by mid-century, half of the projected 9.8 billion people on Earth “could be at risk due to water stress,” said a report out today from the Chicago Council on Global Affairs.

Ertharin Cousin, director of the UN World Food Program since 2012, has joined the Chicago Council on Global Affairs and will advise the group in “its ongoing efforts to advance global food security by supporting research, representing food security expertise on a variety of global stages, and building unique partnerships.”

Alesha Black, who spent eight years working on agricultural development at the Gates Foundation, is the new director of the global food and agriculture portfolio at the Chicago Council on Global Affairs, one of the most active think tanks on the topic.

Rajiv Shah, who headed the U.S. Agency for International Development for five years, will become a senior adviser to the Chicago Council on Global Affairs on July 1.