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Sharp declines in the dairy and sugar prices, dropping by 6 percent or more in a month, pulled down the monthly Food Price Index to its lowest level this year, said the UN Food and Agriculture Organization. The index, which measures international prices for a basket of commodities, had been rising steadily until June.

High-tech, indoor, urban agriculture is growing in places like New York, but so is controversy around them, according to FERN's latest story, produced in partnership with Edible Brooklyn magazine. The story, by Rene Ebersole, points to one indoor company that produces high-end specialty greens for restaurants called Farm.One. "In a town of eight million, Farm.One is part of a rising movement to cultivate produce where large numbers of people live by using high-tech systems and smart greenhouses placed at grocery stores, in basements and even inside cargo vessels."