The demand for cage-free eggs has not kept up with the supply, so Cal-Maine Foods has adjusted its cage-free egg production accordingly. [node:read-more:link]

The wildfires that tore through over a million acres of Montana this year damaged homes, cloaked communities in smoke, and burned a hole in the state budget.   With winter snow already falling, Montana’s blazes mostly have subsided. But the state now faces a $200 million budget shortfall exacerbated by the record cost of fighting wildfires, Gov. Steve Bullock, a Democrat, said in an early September statement explaining the crisis. [node:read-more:link]

The Michigan Senate on Wednesday voted to prohibit local governments from taxing food, drinks or chewing gum, a pre-emptive strike against local control over so-called “soda taxes” enacted in other parts of the country. Cook County, Illinois, is one of the latest local governments to slap a tax on the sugary beverage, which supporters say will discourage unhealthy diets, but officials there are now considering repealing the penny-an-ounce tax.The Michigan Constitution exempts groceries from the state sales tax, and sponsoring Sen. [node:read-more:link]

The Kansas City Fed is the Federal Reserve System's leader in agricultural economic research. Our work provides insights on agricultural and rural economies, both within our seven-state region of the Tenth Federal Reserve District and nationally. [node:read-more:link]

The recent pro-vegan Netflix documentary, What the Health, is under fire from nutrition experts. The film, which is co-directed by Kip Andersen and Keegan Kuhn—the creators of another Netflix documentary, Cowspiracy—and co-produced by actor Joaquin Phoenix, is being criticized by some health professionals for exaggerating weak data and misrepresenting science to promote a diet that avoids all animal foods. TIME fact-checked the film. Here are four things that What the Health got wrong—and what it got right. [node:read-more:link]

The Trump administration acted unlawfully when it froze Obama-era restrictions on greenhouse gas emissions from the oil and gas industry, a federal court ruled.  According to the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, the Interior Department misused a provision of the Administrative Procedure Act when it stalled key provisions of a rule aimed at reducing methane venting and flaring on public and tribal lands.Just today, BLM unveiled a separate proposal to delay the standards until January 2019. [node:read-more:link]

Potential trade disputes are approaching from all directions with significant implications for American agriculture. To the north and south, the US government is renegotiating the North American Free Trade Agreement [NAFTA] with Canada and Mexico. Just last week, the three countries met in Ottawa, with many thorny issues yet to be resolved. Also last week, the US imposed a tariff of almost 220 percent on certain models of aircraft produced in Canada. [node:read-more:link]

Iowa farm financial conditions have deteriorated since 2012, but average indicators of liquidity and solvency remain close to their long-term levels. This publication examines the financial well-being of 273 Iowa farms, detailing their average net income, net worth, debt-to-asset ratio, liquidity rating, solvency rating and working capital per acre. [node:read-more:link]

Minnesota's fast-growing clean-energy economy, rooted in wind, solar, conservation, technology and even software, is a change for a state that historically imported its energy. [node:read-more:link]

As staggering as the climb in the nation’s overdose death rate has been, the deepening crisis has hit some populations even harder. Older, working-age adults and non-Hispanic whites experienced faster-than-average increases in drug overdose death rates during the 2000s, growing by factors of 5 and 3.5, respectively. New research by Alan B. [node:read-more:link]