Unless the U.S. and Japan move quickly in promised trade talks, American wheat farmers stand to take significant hits in exports thanks to the swiftly approaching start of the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP).

The biotech portion of the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement is just one example of several new ag provisions that were added during the overhaul of the North American Free Trade Agreement – NAFTA 2.0 as some are calling it - over the past year of negotiations.

With the new farm bill likely stalled until after the November mid-term elections, one of the biggest disputes still to be ironed out is a provision in the House farm bill that would end commodity program payments for acreage on which farmers haven’t been growing program crops.

Some Republicans say the best thing Congress could do to help farmers withstand the turmoil in trade policy is to pass a new farm bill. But economists say the legislation is unlikely to offer much relief to farmers, especially soybean growers, even if commodity prices don’t recover from their current tariff-induced slump.

Fires in Oregon wheat fields have claimed thousands of crop acres and taken the life of a farmer seeking to stop a blaze from spreading, and the damage to pocketbooks might not be over yet.

America's usual weather diverges from the arid U.S. West to the wet East Coast, but extreme rain events are getting more frequent, dumping more water, and this summer is a case in point.