USDA

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.

There were 10.6 million head of cattle in U.S. feedlots being fattened for slaughter on Nov 1, up slightly from this point a year ago, says USDA. Feedstuffs says it is the first time since August 2012 the monthly tally was higher than the year-earlier figure.

World sugar consumption is forecast to set a record of 171 million tonnes this marketing year, sas USDA in a semi-annual report. At that volume, it will nearly catch up with sugar production, which has peaked at 177.6 million tonnes two years ago, creating...

Pork production during the final three months of this year is forecast to be 5 percent smaller than the year-earlier figure, keeping prices for slaughter hogs high, says the monthly Livestock, Dairy and Poultry Outlook report.

In the State of the Union address in January, President Barack Obama "should announce an executive order establishing a national policy for food, health and well-being," write Mark Bittman, Michael Pollan, Richardo Salvador and Olivier De Schutter in an essay in the Washington Post.

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.

Consumer groups fear the slow pace of rule-writing may delay until 2018 the labeling of mechanically tenderized meat, says Food Safety News.

The Agriculture Department seeks public comment on all aspects, from the size of the assessment to who will be in charge, of a separate beef checkoff program that it intends to create.

USDA "may want to consider" changing the March 31 deadline for growers to decide which crop subsidy option to take - a traditional plan based on target prices or a new approach based on crop revenue, says economist Carl Zulauf of Ohio State University.

USDA said it certified four processing plants in China's Shandong Province to cook and ship poultry meat to U.S. customers, the latest step in a decade-old proposal.

A new crop insurance policy, whole-farm revenue protection, is available for 2015 crops, said USDA's Risk Management Agency. It says the new policy "makes crop insurance more affordable for producers, including fruit and vegetable growers and...

Some 55.3 million acres of U.S. farmland are irrigated, says the Farm and Ranch Irrigation Survey, drawn from USDA's 2012 Census of Agriculture.

Strong demand in the opening weeks of the marketing year and lower market prices are forecast to result in record exports of U.S. soybean meal, said USDA. It estimated sales of 12.8 million short tons, up 10 percent from 2013/14.

Serious drought cut yields sharply on as much as 15 percent of corn land in China, second to the United States as the world's top producer, says USDA. It estimates the harvest at 214 million tonnes, down 8 million tonnes from estimates made before the brunt of the dry weather was felt.

The Agriculture Department unveiled revisions in the Conservation Stewardship Program to reflect the directions of the 2014 farm law and invited public comments on its proposals.

Seed and chemical company Monsanto announced an agreement with soft white wheat growers to settle three class-action lawsuits that arose from the discovery that some of its experimental genetically engineered wheat was growing wild in eastern Oregon.

U.S. farm exports set back-to-back records, climbing to $152.5 billion in just-ended fiscal 2014, said the Agriculture Department, up 8 percent from the mark set one year earlier.

The government will raise its estimates of the U.S. corn and soybean crops modestly when it issues its new forecasts for the record-setting fall harvest, say traders in two surveys.