The Tennessee Valley Authority helped deliver electricity to large parts of the Southeast United States starting in the 1930s. Could it also be part of moving rural Tennessee into the internet age?  Phil Bredesen, former governor of Tennessee and now Democratic candidate for the U.S. Senate, says TVA could do just that. TVA, which was one of FDR’s first New Deal programs, generates electricity and transmits the power wholesale to local utilities, which handle the last mile. [node:read-more:link]

New rules in Tennessee allow utility co-ops more leeway in providing internet service to their customers. [node:read-more:link]

It’s been two weeks since the merger between Bayer AG and Monsanto officially began its integration, two months since the deal closed and nearly two years since the planned deal was announced.  Despite that, newly appointed Bayer officials are vague on how they plan to handle the mountain of lawsuits inherited from Monsanto over pesticides such as glyphosate and dicamba.  These lawsuits have plagued Monsanto, most recently in an August 10 court decision that ordered the company to pay $289 million in damages. [node:read-more:link]

Private holdings block public access to nearly 10 million acres of federal land in the West, hampering growth in the recreation economy, a new report says. The federal program that could help purchase access expires September 30. The inaccessibility of this federal property is slowing down rural economies that depend on income from the outdoor recreation industry, said a representative of the organization that commissioned the report. [node:read-more:link]

The agriculture industry in the U.S. is dealing with a lot of uncertainty. Falling prices and trade wars top the list. We expect our exports to grow faster than our imports. However, for 3 years in a row, that has not been happening. We are losing ground. Looking to 2019, pork exports are expected to decline by $300 million and beef by $100 million.A little bit of good news – poultry will be up slightly, and also wheat. Net farm income is forecast to drop $9.8 billion. [node:read-more:link]

Not long after Beau Braden moved to southwest Florida to open a medical clinic, injured strangers started showing up at his house. A boy who had split open his head at the pool. People with gashes and broken bones. There was nowhere else to go after hours, they told him, so Dr. Braden stitched them up on his dining room table. They were 40 miles inland from the coral-white condos and beach villas of Naples, but Dr. [node:read-more:link]

Bayer said the number of American plaintiffs alleging its recently acquired weedkillers cause cancer has risen sharply, adding to concerns about potentially lengthy and costly litigation stemming from its acquisition of Monsanto. The German chemicals company on Wednesday also lowered its full-year earnings outlook because of delays in closing its $63 billion purchase of Monsanto, which included a portfolio of herbicides that contain glyphosate, notably flagship product Roundup.Bayer said it faced some 8,700 plaintiffs across the U.S. [node:read-more:link]

U.S. dairy exporters are losing money as they try to maintain their hard-won footholds in the Chinese market amid the rising tariffs resulting from President Donald Trump’s trade war. Some U.S. exporters – sellers of relatively low-cost nonfat dry milk powder – have already had to give up, but many who depend on China to buy whey, cheese and other pricier products are hanging on for now, says U.S. Dairy Export Council (USDEC) President and CEO Tom Vilsack.It’s a tough situation that’s only degrading as U.S. companies lose ground to competitors in Australia, Europe and New Zealand. [node:read-more:link]

Proposed changes to the farm bill nutrition title threaten to hang up the conference committee. So, it is as important as ever for farm groups to band with their partners in the nutrition community in calling on Congress to protect the integrity of the consumer food safety net.For organizations such as ours, National Farmers Union and Mazon: A Jewish Response to Hunger, there is little to commend in the House version of the farm bill, which was broadly condemned by progressive ag groups, conservationists and anti-hunger advocates. [node:read-more:link]

Farm bill negotiators spoke smilingly of comity and compromise while budging not an inch on major issues such as SNAP work requirements on Wednesday during their first, and possibly last, public meeting. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, after wryly saying, “I can’t remember the last time I appointed myself to a conference,” told his fellow negotiators that if they fail to enact the farm bill before the Sept. [node:read-more:link]