A study by the Rudd Center for Food Policy and Obesity "suggests that living in a food swamp — a neighborhood where fast food and junk food outlets outnumber healthy alternatives — is a stronger predictor of high obesity rates" than so-called food deserts with limited access to nutritious food, says ScienceBlog.

The L.A. Times has named its first-ever Restaurant of the Year, but it didn’t go to the usual high-end suspects. Instead Locol — a burger restaurant started by renowned chefs to serve customers in Watts, where unemployment and gang violence are rampant — is the winner.

Whole Foods and Starbucks are opening locations in Chicago’s crime-ridden Englewood neighborhood as part of a $20-million project to bring better services and products to the area. “The typically upscale Whole Foods will occupy an 18,000-square-foot store in the newly constructed Englewood Square shopping complex during a notably violent year in the neighborhood, one of the city’s poorest — it served as the setting for Spike Lee’s controversial “Chiraq” movie, and median household income is under $20,000, according to Census data,” says MarketWatch.

In central Illinois, the Green Top Grocery, scheduled to open in a "food desert," would improve the diets of shoppers and the incomes of nearby farmers, says Iowa Farmer Today.

Despite having the support of the Senate Agriculture Committee, two Biden nominees to the Agriculture Department must wait until mid-November, at the earliest, for a Senate vote.

U.S. agriculture is running the risk of becoming overly reliant on large exports to China just over a year after Washington and Beijing de-escalated their trade war, said the head of the Farm Credit Administration on Wednesday.

The stopgap USDA program that helps low-income parents buy food for their children who miss school meals because of closures will be renewed for a full year, rather than expiring on Sept. 30, said House Speaker Nancy Pelosi on Tuesday. Extension of the so-called Pandemic EBT program was part of nearly $8 billion in nutrition assistance added to a government funding bill during negotiations with Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, Pelosi said in a statement.

As the spread of the novel coronavirus shutters businesses, schools, and restaurants, farmers who sell locally and regionally need support from the federal government, said Rep. Chellie Pingree in a letter sent Monday to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. <strong>(No paywall)</strong>

"Prized farms are at the center of heated political infighting in Zimbabwe," says the New York Times, with the tactic, used against white landowners in the past, now a lever in the struggle over succession of President Robert Mugabe. At the same time, political opponents are under threat of losing their land, the Mugabe administration promises reforms, including recognition of land ownership, to obtain financing from the international Monetary Fund.

The troubles for the villagers of Sianyanga, Zimbabwe, began in the late 1980s, when the Nalomwe River, which watered the village, went dry. Soon, the shade trees died and the villagers' cattle herds suffered for lack of water and forage, says a Pacific Standard story produced in partnership with FERN.

A government-owned newspaper says Zimbabwe plans to import up to 700,000 tonnes (28 million bushels) of corn this year to offset crops lost to drought caused by El Niño, said Reuters.

On Tuesday, the leaders of the Senate Agriculture Committee announced that three of President Trump’s nominees have received Senate approval to begin work at the USDA and the CFTC.

Members of the Senate Agriculture Committee are scheduled to vote Tuesday on two Trump administration nominees, Dan Berkovitz to be a CFTC commissioner and James Hubbard to be agriculture undersecretary for natural resources.

President Trump selected Dan Berkovitz, who was general counsel at the Commodity Futures Trading Commission during the Obama era, as his nominee for commissioner of the agency, said the White House.

The Republican-controlled Senate put President Trump's stamp on the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, which oversees the futures markets, by approving his choice for CFTC chairman and two of his nominees for the five-member board. The nominations were approved by unanimous consent and give the CFTC board a majority for the first time in months.

The Trump administration "lost the trade war" with China, said Sen. Kamala Harris, the Democratic nominee for vice president, on Wednesday during a debate with Vice President Mike Pence, who faulted her for voting against the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement. It was the first time agriculture was mentioned in the pre-election debates.

Nearly half of the U.S. winter wheat crop is in drought but its condition improved slightly in the past week, said the USDA on Tuesday. The weekly Crop Progress report also showed growers in the upper Midwest were rushing through corn and soybean planting after a slow start due to cold and wet weather.

Ukrainian farmers may reduce plantings of wheat and other crops for harvest in 2023 because warfare has reduced their income at the same time they face high fuel and fertilizer costs, said two IFPRI analysts during a briefing on Tuesday. A small crop in Ukraine, usually a leading wheat and sunflower oil exporter, could prolong tight global supplies that have driven up grain prices worldwide.

Elevated commodity prices supported farm income and kept the U.S. agricultural economy strong into this autumn, said the Kansas City Federal Reserve Bank on Wednesday. "Prices of most major crops were at multiyear highs moving into fall harvest and supported farm revenue prospects," wrote economists Nathan Kauffman and Ty Kreitman.

The U.S. appeals court based in Washington voided a Bush-era exemption for large livestock farms from reporting emission of air pollutants in a win for environmentalists, said Law360. The lawsuit was filed more than a year ago by eight environmental groups, who said the EPA ignored petitions in 2009 and 2011 for regulation of ammonia, methane and other emissions from concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs).

In response to a Justice Department lawsuit, Deere and Co., the world's largest farm equipment maker, says its purchase of a competitor, Precision Planting, will expand farmers' ability to update their planters and will not reduce competition for planter sales.

Earthjustice, an environmental law firm, has asked the EPA to revoke the Hawaii Department of Agriculture’s authority to enforce federal pesticide regulations, claiming the department’s pesticide program is understaffed and effectively failing to do its job, reports Honolulu Civil Beat. “The public is at risk and the Department of Agriculture is asleep at the wheel,” Paul Achitoff, managing attorney of Earthjustice, told Civil Beat.

Earthjustice, an environmental nonprofit law firm, served Hawaii’s Agribusiness Development Corporation (ADC) with a notice of intent to sue, claiming the agency has allowed pesticides to contaminate a drainage ditch on the island of Kauai, says The Civil Beat. ADC is a branch of the Hawaiian Department of Agriculture, leasing thousands of acres of land to farms that plant genetically engineered crops.

That's the line used by Kyle Kondik of Sabato's Crystal Ball, referring to the rare defeat of congressional incumbents in a primary election, with House Majority Leader Eric Cantor being this year's headline example. Kondik says an average of six House incumbents and one senator lose a primary each election cycle. In surveying the states yet to hold primaries, Kondik tabbed two farm-state incumbents worth watching: Rep Scott DesJarlais, Tennessee Republican, and Sen Pat Roberts, Kansas Republican.

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.

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.

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."

Three months ago, the Senate Agriculture Committee recommended Senate approval of Robert Bonnie to run the USDA's farm subsidy and land stewardship programs, which cost more than $10 billion a year. The nomination is set for a floor vote next week, after a series of delays forced by senators who put "holds" on it.

California state agriculture official Jennifer Moffitt, who pledged to give farmers more leverage in dealing with meatpackers, was confirmed by the Senate on Wednesday as agriculture undersecretary for marketing and regulatory programs. She was the first Biden nominee approved by the Senate for a sub-cabinet post at the USDA.

Chairwoman Debbie Stabenow said the Senate Agriculture Committee is making progress on stocking the USDA with President Biden's choices for sub-cabinet posts. The committee advanced two nominations to the floor on Tuesday, creating the possibility of confirmation votes before the Senate adjourns for its summer recess.

Iowa Sen. Chuck Grassley told reporters that it’s just a matter of time until Bill Northey, the Iowa state agriculture secretary, is nominated for a senior post at the USDA. Since spring, Northey has been considered the likely nominee for undersecretary for farm production and conservation, overseeing farm subsidies and land stewardship programs.