The USDA has a permanent home for two research agencies, four months after announcing they would move to “the Kansas City region” and weeks after employees began reporting to work at temporary quarters.

Kansas City should be the new home of two agencies that USDA plans to move out of Washington, say three Missouri lawmakers, joining the expected bidding war for the 620 high-paying jobs that constitute the Economic Research Service and the National Institute of Food and Agriculture. While the boost to a local economy is alluring, some researchers wonder if the relocation is part of a plan to slash the size and funding of the research agencies.

The Midwest lost 1.06 percent of its farmland in the two decades ending in 2021; development accounted for half of the loss, said three Ohio State University analysts on Monday. "The role of large urban areas is paramount, as 81 percent of land lost to development in the eight states occurred within metropolitan statistical areas," which are regions with a core city of at least 50,000 people and strong ties to its surrounding communities.

Local governments have imposed at least 2,600 restrictions on wind and solar power projects in their jurisdictions, with local opposition seeming to rise with the size of the project, said a USDA report on wind and solar development in rural areas. Wind and solar projects had a combined footprint of 423,974 acres in 2020, or 0.05 percent of the nation's 870 million acres of farmland, said the four economists who wrote the report.

The honorary chairman of the Trump campaign in Idaho, third-term Gov. Butch Otter, was mentioned repeatedly as a possible nominee for Interior secretary. Now his spokesman says Otter is in the mix for Agriculture secretary, and Politico cited unnamed sources in saying, "Otter has been to Trump Tower to talk with the transition team about the agriculture secretary position."

The company that developed GMO potatoes that resist bruising will work with two universities to develop genetically modified blight-resistant potatoes for farmers in Indonesia and Bangladesh, reports Capital Press. A spokesman for JR Simplot Co., based in Boise, said the new varieties may be available for cultivation in five years.

Fast-food giant McDonald's says "it doesn't plan to buy...the Innate potato," genetically engineered by JR Simplot to produce smaller amounts of acrylamide, a suspected carcinogen, when fried, says the Idaho Statesman.

The Agriculture Department approved cultivation of the Innate potato developed by JR Simplot Co. and genetically engineered to produce smaller amounts of acrylamides when it is fried.

Four of every 10 miles of U.S. rivers and streams are in poor condition because of nitrogen and phosphorus runoff, said the EPA in its latest National Rivers and Streams Assessment.

A watchdog group gave the bay and its watershed a health grade of D+ for water pollution, habitat, and fisheries on Thursday, the same as its last assessment in 2020. “Overall, the unchanged score is largely the result of failures to make needed changes on farmland to reduce pollution,” said the Chesapeake Bay Foundation.

With three years left to meet the goals of a “pollution diet,” the three major states in the Chesapeake Bay watershed have greatly improved their wastewater treatment, though they still lag in three other areas, including reducing agricultural runoff, said the Chesapeake Bay Foundation.

In Manhattan, Whole Foods' latest store offers customers a “produce butcher” to cut up vegetables in real time — and for a price. According to the store’s sign, the produce butcher will “julienne (long, thin matchsticks), mince, dice, chop, and slice” produce for a dollar a pound, says Modern Farmer.

Some farmers are seeing a drop in farmers' market sales, as customers steer toward prepared foods and away from fresh vegetables and fruit, says The Washington Post. Many customers coming to markets today are younger and don’t cook much. They consider the market more of an event than a source for the week’s groceries.

Americans spend an average of 35 minutes a day preparing meals and cleaning up after them, according to the Labor Department. "That's compared to about 50 minutes just a few decades ago," says Harvest Public Media in the fifth segment of its "Feasting on Fuel" series.

A dozen elections today may influence food and agriculture policy nationally, They range from the Kansas race that could determine the next chairman of the Senate Agriculture Committee to referendums on soda taxes and GMO labeling.

Some $10 million could be spent on the U.S. House race between Rep Steve Southerland and Democrat Gwen Graham in the Florida panhandle, says WTXL-TV in Tallahassee.

House Agriculture subcommittee chairman Steve King leads by 12 points in a Loras College poll of 280 likely voters in the Fourth House District in northwestern Iowa.

The cost of the food stamp program, the premiere U.S. anti-hunger program, is falling in tandem with the enrollment, says the think tank Center for Budget and Policy Priorities.

Roughly 1 million people - 2 percent of current enrollment - will be cut off of food stamps during 2016 as states re-impose the three-month limit on benefits to unemployed adults from ages 18-50 who are not disabled or raising children...

The Agriculture Department is drafting a $1 a head beef checkoff program of its own that would run alongside the current $1 checkoff that is a lightning rod for complaints of favoritism.

The board that oversees the beef check-off program would lose three seats under a reapportionment proposed by USDA in the Federal Register.

In FERN's latest story, published with Mother Jones, Bridget Huber explains how Maine is defining standards for allowable levels of PFAS in soil and food, while the federal government tiptoes around a growing national crisis.

Researchers conducting the first broadscale test for so-called PFAS in private and public water supplies found the so-called forever chemicals in 45 percent of the nation’s tap water, said the U.S. Geological Survey on Wednesday. The agency said PFAS were far more likely to be detected in tap water in urban areas than in rural America.

PFAS, known as "forever chemicals" because of how long they last in the environment, are present in at least 1,400 pesticides, according to a new analysis from the Environmental Working Group. The chemicals are found in products ranging from herbicides applied to corn, sugar beets and cranberries to insecticides used on livestock and pets, to algaecides that protect boat paint.

The Environmental Protection Agency is due to announce enforceable regulations on the amount of per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, a class of thousands of chemicals collectively known as PFAS, allowed in drinking water. Those rules, which could be announced as early as today, could end up costing communities around the country nearly $40 billion to implement, according to the Associated Press.