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The U.S. and European Union are vowing to look past their significant differences on how to improve agricultural production practices, strengthen food supplies and protect the environment, says USDA Deputy Secretary Jewel Bronaugh, who spoke to reporters from Rome after attending the United Nations Food Systems Pre-Summit.

Senate negotiators reached agreement with the White House on details of a bipartisan infrastructure package that would provide $550 billion in new spending for roads and bridges, waterways, rural broadband and other needs.

California‘s Proposition 12 has survived a challenge in a federal appeals court brought by the National Pork Producers Council and American Farm Bureau Federation, which alleged it imposed excessive costs on out-of-state pork producers who will have to comply with the law’s animal housing requirements.

On July 22, the U.S. Soybean Export Council, the United Soybean Board and the American Soybean Association announced that over 100 million metric tons of U.S. Soy Sustainability Assurance Protocol verified soy had been exported internationally in the seven years since the protocol’s conception, according to the two groups.

The House Agriculture Committee today takes up legislation that would authorize up to $8.5 billion in aid for disasters in 2020 and 2021. The nine-page bill builds on provisions of the temporary WHIP programs that started in the wake of the 2017 hurricanes and wildfires and then expanded as WHIP+ in 2018 and 2019.

Six groups have filed suit against the Agriculture Department over regulations the Trump administration issued last year to streamline the regulation of gene-edited crop traits and allow companies to decide whether their products need USDA approval.

Senate negotiators look to finalize and advance a bipartisan infrastructure bill this week, while the House debates a package of appropriations that would sharply increase funding for USDA, EPA and other departments and agencies important to agriculture.

The top Republican on the Senate Agriculture Committee is alleging the Biden administration improperly revised financial incentives to lure lenders to apply for the Conservation Reserve Program and that the resulting contracts may turn out to be invalid.

The Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee advanced the nomination of Tracy Stone-Manning to be director of the Bureau of Land Management after a sharply partisan debate over her truthfulness about a 1989 tree-spiking incident on an Idaho national forest.

The leader of the UN Food Systems Summit says the initiative aims to get countries to reform their own food systems in ways that address climate change, hunger and other pressing challenges, rather than enabling countries to impose their practices on other nations.