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The Environmental Protection Agency and biofuel trade association Growth Energy have finalized a proposed consent decree that would set an early summer publishing deadline for the biofuel mandate targets of the current and prior year.

The leaders of the Senate Agriculture Committee have formed a new caucus they say will be aimed at supporting the work of teachers and parents of students currently enrolled in agricultural education curriculum across the country.

USDA’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service has announced more findings of highly pathogenic avian influenza in the U.S., this time in what it called a “non-commercial, non-poultry flock” in Maine.

USDA is again inspecting Mexican avocados, allowing the resumption of exports to the U.S., which cannot come close to meeting consumer demand with domestic production.

Rep. Jim Hagedorn, a Minnesota Republican in his second term in Congress and on the House Agriculture Committee, died Thursday after a three-year battle with stage four kidney cancer. He was 59.

Congressional negotiators now have until March 11 to agree on a massive bill to fund the government for a fiscal year that started nearly five months ago.

Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack says the government needs to ensure that seed companies and other input suppliers aren’t using their market power to raise prices unfairly.

China continues to be a “difficult and unpredictable market for U.S. agricultural exporters” because it flouts international trade standards set by the World Trade Organization, according to a new report to Congress from the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative.

Supporters and critics of the Renewable Fuel Standard sparred Wednesday over whether RFS ethanol blending requirements contribute to higher gasoline prices and reduce greenhouse gas emissions, at a Senate hearing examining the law.

Officials from USDA’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service won’t be inspecting Mexican avocados for export to the U.S. until the agency is confident there are safe working conditions in the state of Michoacán, effectively cutting off exports from the only Mexican state allowed to ship to the U.S.