Thousands of workers have been laid off and several factories shuttered since the Brazilian investment firm 3G Capital helped facilitate Kraft’s acquisition of Heinz in 2015. Now, at the end of the trademark cost-cutting cycle that follows many 3G deals, Kraft Heinz must grapple with changing consumer preferences, the Wall Street Journal reports.

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.

Compared to other developed nations, the United States would feel little impact from climate mitigation efforts modeled on the Paris accord, said two Purdue University researchers on Thursday.

The inspector general’s office at the EPA will investigate an April meeting between EPA administrator Scott Pruitt and the National Mining Association, said The Hill newspaper.

According to a UN report, 2017 is on track to be one of the three hottest years on record. The cause, it says, is climate change, which the report implicates in “extraordinary weather,” including extreme hurricanes, floods, and droughts.

California Gov. Jerry Brown has extended the state’s climate plan for another decade by signing into law a bundle of bills meant to lower greenhouse-gas emissions. “The legislation puts California at the forefront of plans by mostly Democratic governors to reduce carbon emissions and adhere to the goals of the Paris climate change accord after Republican President Donald Trump withdrew the United States from the pact,” says Reuters.

Sonny Perdue can expect a broad and bipartisan vote in the Senate next week to become agriculture secretary, though it won’t be unanimous, said Iowa Sen. Charles Grassley.

Democrats' chances of defeating Senate Judiciary chair Charles Grassley, a longtime Agriculture Committee member, were never great and are fading like the shortening days of autumn, says Sabato's Crystal Ball. "With Trump now positioned as a slight favorite to win the Hawkeye State, there is no sign that Grassley is in any danger," says the political website, rating the race as "safe Republican."

Senate Judiciary Chairman Chuck Glassley of Iowa said he would hold hearings next month on "a wave of consolidation among seed and chemical producers, including the merger of Dow and DuPont," the Des Moines Register reported. The announcement came one day after the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States approved the $43 billion merger of ChemChina and Swiss-based Syngenta, which has significant operations in the United States.

The Justice Department and Federal Trade Commission ought to collaborate in their review of two major mergers that affect the seed and ag chemical supply, said Senate Judiciary chairman Charles Grassley in a letter to regulators. "It is important that these transactions are not reviewed in isolation," wrote Grassley, noting that different regulators are handling each of the mergers, Dow-DuPont and ChemChina-Syngenta.

The United States imported near-record volumes of renewable diesel fuel in each of the first five months of this year, averaging 30,000 barrels a day, said the Energy Information Administration. The imports, which were 29 percent higher than in the same period in 2023, came from one producer, Neste, and were shipped almost wholly to the West Coast.

Thanks to a rush in investment, the renewable diesel industry is in a building boom in the United States and abroad "that is very comparable, I believe, to the ethanol boom of the mid-2000s," said economist Scott Irwin of the University of Illinois on Thursday.

Continuing a four-year trend, land values rose during the growing season in the northern Plains, despite financial tightening in the farm sector, said ag bankers in a quarterly survey by the Minneapolis Federal Reserve Bank.

Springtime increases in corn, soybean, and wheat prices brightened the outlook for the agricultural sector amid expectations of lower farm income this year than in 2023, said Federal Reserve regional banks in the Beige Book report on Wednesday. The Chicago and Dallas banks said the discovery of bird flu in dairy cattle was a cause for concern.

For the first time since 2001, interest rates are rising faster than farmland values, creating a potential obstacle to land purchasers, said assistant economist Ty Kreitman of the Kansas City Federal Reserve Bank. “With interest costs now above average land value appreciation, farm operating profits will determine the magnitude of returns for financed land,” he said.

High commodity prices and low interest rates fueled a sharp 15 percent increase in the value of cropland in the Midwest and Plains in the third quarter, according to surveys of ag bankers by four regional Federal Reserve banks. "Alongside prospects for further strength in commodity markets, the outlook for farm finances and agricultural land values through the end of 2021 remained strong," said a summary of the surveys.

Meat processor JBS said all of its plants were fully operational on Thursday, four days after a ransomware attack shut down cattle slaughter plants in the United States, Canada, and Australia. Less than a day's worth of production was lost during the attack, the company said.

new FERN investigation, published Friday in collaboration with Mother Jones, reporters Esther Honig and Ted Genoways tell the stories of workers in America's meatpacking plants who are facing high rates of Covid-19 — and of the industry's chilling disregard for its workforce. <strong>(No paywall)</strong>

A wetter fall has convinced California regulators to ease up on water restrictions for farmers and ranchers in the San Joaquin-Sacramento River Delta and its watersheds, says Reuters. A foot of rain fell on the northern half of the state in October, making it the second wettest on record in the northern Sierra Nevadas. The south remained dry.

Thanks to declines in food prices in 2016 and 2017, grocery store prices will stand at a lower overall level at the end of this year than they were at the end of 2015, said the monthly Food Price Outlook. For the second month in a row, USDA raised its forecast of price increases for fresh vegetables but forecast a scant 0.5 percent rise in food prices for the year.

In a study on food waste in the United States, the World Wildlife Fund found that on a specific set of farms in four states, 40 percent of tomatoes, 39 percent of peaches, 56 percent of romaine lettuce, and 2 percent of processing potatoes were left in the field rather than harvested.