Gov. Scott Walker has signed a bill that loosens fish farm regulations. Under the Republican bill, fish farms no longer need permits to discharge material into a wetland if the wetland was created for fish farming. Natural water bodies can serve as fish farms and farms wouldn't need permits to construct or enlarge artificial water bodies connected to a navigable waterway. New permit conditions will be prohibited unless needed to meet water quality standards. [node:read-more:link]

State Sen. David Lucas has been named chairman of a committee tasked with improving rural Georgia. The political veteran will guide the meetings for the Senate Rural Georgia Study Committee that begin this summer. The committee deals with similar issues as a House Rural Development Council that will create policy ideas on issues such as health care and education in rural communities. [node:read-more:link]

Three consumer groups on Thursday filed a lawsuit against Sanderson Farms Inc. accusing the company of falsely advertising that its chicken is “100 percent natural.” The groups suing Sanderson Farms are the Organic Consumers Association, Friends of the Earth and Center for Food Safety. In the lawsuit, filed in U.S. [node:read-more:link]

Patterns for all three air-quality measures suggest that air quality improves as areas become more rural (or less urban). The mean total number of ozone days decreased from 47.54 days in large central metropolitan counties to 3.81 days in noncore counties, whereas the mean total number of PM2.5 days decreased from 11.21 in large central metropolitan counties to 0.95 in noncore counties. The mean average annual PM2.5 concentration decreased from 11.15 μg/m3 in large central metropolitan counties to 8.87 μg/m3 in noncore counties. [node:read-more:link]

Intense competition among grocers is forcing Kroger to slash prices on popular items like milk and eggs — staples that help sway where shoppers go.The company, which operates Fred Meyer, Ralphs and Fry's, on Thursday reported its second straight quarter of declining sales at established locations after more than seven years of uninterrupted growth. [node:read-more:link]

This is a golden age of beverage innovation in America, according to market research firm Packaged Facts. This is thanks to a desire for more healthful products with cleaner labels; the emergence of new ingredients, production processes and technologies; and the coming of age of millennials as the dominant consumer demographic, a group that is adventurous when it comes to trying new things. [node:read-more:link]

Arla Foods has been ordered to halt its new $30m ‘Live Unprocessed’ ad campaign – which makes a virtue of using milk from cows that have not been fed the growth hormone rBST - in the wake of legal action* filed by rbST maker Eli Lilly [node:read-more:link]

Glyphosate, an herbicide and the active ingredient in Monsanto Co's popular Roundup weed killer, will be added to California's list of chemicals known to cause cancer effective July 7. Monsanto vowed to continue its legal fight against the designation, required under a state law known as Proposition 65, and called the decision "unwarranted on the basis of science and the law." Earlier this month, Reuters reported that the scientist leading the IARC’s review knew of fresh data showing no link between glyphosate and cancer. [node:read-more:link]

The Environmental Protection Agency, Department of Army, and Army Corps of Engineers (the agencies) are proposing a rule to rescind the Clean Water Rule and re-codify the regulatory text that existed prior to 2015 defining "waters of the United States" or WOTUS. [node:read-more:link]

For the hundreds of rural U.S. hospitals struggling to stay in business, health policy decisions made in Washington, D.C., this summer could make survival a lot tougher. Since 2010, at least 79 rural hospitals have closed across the country, and nearly 700 more are at risk of closing. [node:read-more:link]