There's a genetic technology that scientists are eager to apply to food, touting its possibilities for things like mushrooms that don't brown and pigs that are resistant to deadly diseases. And food industry groups, still reeling from widespread protests against genetically engineered corn and soybeans (aka GMOs) that have made it difficult to get genetically engineered food to grocery store shelves, are looking to influence public opinion.The technology is called Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeats, or CRISPR. [node:read-more:link]

Wiens notes the Manitoba dairy industry reached a new benchmark over the past year. [node:read-more:link]

Dairy farmers in Massachusetts struggle to make good-quality feed, make ends meet when milk prices are low and push the limit on cow numbers to keep their farms afloat. At least that’s what a contingent from Wisconsin learned Oct. 9 when they visited the Jordan Dairy Farm near Rutland, Mass. [node:read-more:link]

No sense in crying over spilled milk, but what about $437,000 in legal fees? Florida’s paying that amount to the attorneys of Ocheesee Creamery, which is about 50 miles west of Tallahassee. State officials under Adam Putnam’s Department of Agriculture had pushed to label the dairy’s skim milk as imitation, because vitamins aren’t added to it, according to the Associated Press.The state defines skim milk as having Vitamin A. [node:read-more:link]

The Klamath River, in southern Oregon and Northern California, once hosted the West Coast’s third-largest salmon run, until dams and irrigation disrupted it. During severe drought in 2001, the feds shut off farmers’ water to save endangered fish and uphold tribal water rights. The farmers sued for $29 million plus interest for the federal “taking” of their water. In 2002, they got to irrigate, but the resulting salmon die-off enraged tribes. Stakeholders eventually negotiated an end to the fighting. [node:read-more:link]

In a letter to three federal agency heads on Tuesday, a group of 79 bipartisan members of the United States House of Representatives expressed concern about the direction being taken to regulate agriculture biotechnology. In particular, in the letter to Scott Pruitt, administrator of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Secretary of Agriculture Sonny Perdue and Scott Gotlieb, commissioner of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, the lawmakers pointed to two regulations currently being re-drafted. [node:read-more:link]

The countdown to the opening of Eataly’s massive food theme park begins. Fico Eataly World, which promises to be the “world’s largest agri-food park,” according to a press release, will open on November 15 in Bologna, Italy. Like the Eataly markets in New York, Dubai, and Boston, the Bologna complex will include Italian restaurants and Italian products. [node:read-more:link]

Officials from the two nations are meeting with counterparts from Peru and Chile for the first time in Colombia this week to discuss a potential trade deal. Canadian officials hinted that the talks may be a message to President Trump and the U.S. The meeting in Colombia "sends a strong signal to the world on the importance of free trade to increase growth and prosperity," Canada's Ministry of International Trade said in a statement. [node:read-more:link]

JD.com’s exclusive products will include bone-in cuts and variety meats, with a focus on small packaged frozen products. Smithfield specializes in these products and they are the types of products in high demand in China. [node:read-more:link]

A solar advocate who found a way to create bulk-purchase discounts for home rooftop systems is growing it into a national movement to assert what she feels are the rights of system owners. What launched as the Community Power Network in 2007 in the Washington, DC, home of Anya Schoolman is expanding under a new name – Solar United Neighbors(SUN). The new organization is targeting, Florida, Pennsylvania and other states by year’s end, with a goal of establishing operations in at all 50 states by the end of 2018. [node:read-more:link]