A law requiring foreign investors to report transactions of farmland to the U.S. Department of Agriculture has been on the books for almost 40 years.  But as the amount of foreign-controlled farmland doubled in millions of acres between 2004 and 2014, the USDA has lapsed in enforcing the law, a review of USDA documents has found. [node:read-more:link]

The pickers range in age from 21 to 65, and all of them are Mexican. As in the rest of the country, growers in heavily agricultural northern Michigan rely overwhelmingly on migrant laborers to work the fields and orchards. According to the farm owners, the workers either came from Mexico on temporary H2A visas or they have paperwork showing they are in the U.S. [node:read-more:link]

A notice from the Environmental Protection Agency has the biofuels community up in arms as they face the prospect of a potential hit to renewable fuel blending levels.  the EPA released a Notice of Data Availability (NODA) giving public notice and inviting comment on “potential options for reductions in the 2018 biomass-based diesel, advanced biofuel, and total renewable fuel volumes, and/or the 2019 biomass-based diesel volume under the Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS) program.” A 15-day comment period will be triggered when the NODA is published in the Federal Register.  In July, the EPA ann [node:read-more:link]

Popular alternatives to cow’s milk such as soya or almond milk may leave consumers at risk of iodine deficiency, a study has found. UK researchers examined the iodine contents of 47 milk-alternative drinks including soya, almond, coconut, oat, rice, hazelnut and hemp, but excluding those marketed specifically at infants and children, and compared them with that of cows’ milk.Popular alternatives to cow’s milk such as soya or almond milk may leave consumers at risk of iodine deficiency, a study has found. 

  [node:read-more:link]

A new lawsuit in California is asking the question if county government can force producers to keep farming in order to keep your own land.
[node:read-more:link]

Artists and museums are often in the thick of free speech debates — think of Rudolph W. Giuliani’s battle with the Brooklyn Museum over a Virgin Mary artwork with elephant dung and more recently a fight over an exhibit that evoked Emmett Till’s mutilated corpse. Typically the art world holds its ground, emerging bruised but resolute. [node:read-more:link]

Hurricane Maria wiped out about 80 percent of the crop value in Puerto Rico — making it one of the costliest storms to hit the island’s agriculture industry. Entire plantations, dairy barns and industrial chicken coops are gone. Hurricane Maria made landfall here Wednesday as a Category 4 storm. Its force and fury stripped every tree of not just the leaves, but also the bark, leaving a rich agricultural region looking like the result of a postapocalyptic drought. Rows and rows of fields were denuded. [node:read-more:link]

Syngenta  announced a settlement with farmers who sued the company following the release of Agrisure Viptera and Agrisure Duracade MIR 162 corn traits. Details of the settlement have not been released at this point, but other media outlets reported on Tuesday the settlement was worth about $1.5 billion.According to a news release from Syngenta, the settlement, which is subject to court approval, would create a settlement fund for the "submission of claims by eligible claimants" who contracted to price corn or corn byproducts after Sept. [node:read-more:link]

Cattle pass a lot of gas, and the methane from their flatulence and especially, their belches, is an expanding burden on the planet. The greenhouse gas has a warming potential 25 times that of carbon dioxide. [node:read-more:link]