According to a new report from Farm Credit System member CoBank, global demand and the potential for profit are creating strong incentives for US pork producers to expand capacity. While this means favorable conditions for producers, it also means intensified competition among packers and possible short-term compression in packer margins. “US pork packing capacity will increase eight to 10 percent by mid-2019, when five processing facility construction projects are complete and fully operational,” Trevor Amen, an economist with CoBank who specializes in animal protein said in a statement. [node:read-more:link]

Amazon has agreed to acquire Whole Foods Market, Inc. for $42 per share in an all-cash transaction valued at approximately $13.7 billion, including Whole Foods Market’s net debt. Whole Foods Market will retain its headquarters in Austin, Texas, and John Mackey will remain CEO. The retailer will continue to operate stores under the Whole Foods Market brand and source from established vendors and partners around the world, the company said. [node:read-more:link]

A rollback of Obama administration efforts to open Cuba to U.S. tourism and trade may chill a rebound in agricultural sales to the island nation, setting back a farm-lobby push that’s weathered two decades. U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson signaled Tuesday that changes would come as soon as Friday, when President Donald Trump visits Miami. The moves may include new limits on travel and investment policies. [node:read-more:link]

In the developed world, we have been working on ever cleaner ways to burn coal since the first coal-fired generator began running in England back in the late 1800s. First, we moved away from burning coal inside our homes, concentrating the production of soot into a few large power plants and moving the soot plumes outside of cities. Then we began to make our smokestacks taller, so that pollution plumes would be lofted higher and distributed more broadly downwind of power plants. [node:read-more:link]

The U.S. set a new renewable energy milestone in March, in data released Wednesday. For the first time, wind and solar accounted for 10 percent of all electricity generation, with wind comprising 8 percent and solar coming in at 2 percent.Wind and solar generation typically peaks in the spring and fall when there is less energy demand, and the EIA expects April to continue the record-setting 10 percent trend. [node:read-more:link]

The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) today announced the extension of the comment period to July 5, 2017, on documents related to a petition to deregulate two lines of genetically engineered freeze-tolerant Eucalyptus. The documents are the draft environmental impact statement (dEIS) and preliminary plant pest risk assessment (PPRA) prepared as part of the review of the petition submitted by ArborGen, Inc. [node:read-more:link]

Brazil has approved commercial use of a genetically modified sugarcane, setting a milestone for the country's highly competitive sugar industry as this is the first time such permission has been granted anywhere in the world. Authorization was obtained by CTC Centro de Tecnologia Canavieira SA, which developed the technology and made the application seeking approval in December 2015. [node:read-more:link]

Local organizations contend the state was wrong to give the seed company a permit to grow genetically modified crops on public land. Kauai residents and organizations are suing the state and Syngenta in an attempt to prevent the company from continuing to grow genetically modified crops on public land. [node:read-more:link]

The World Health Organization's cancer agency says a common weedkiller is "probably carcinogenic." The scientist leading that review knew of fresh data showing no cancer link - but he never mentioned it and the agency did not take it into account.The epidemiologist from the U.S. [node:read-more:link]

New York, California and nine other states sued the Trump administration over its failure to finalize energy-use limits for portable air conditioners and other products.  The new standards would reduce greenhouse gas emissions, save businesses and consumers billions of dollars, and conserve enough energy to power more than 19 million households for a year, but the U.S. Department of Energy has not met a requirement to publish them by now, according to attorneys general who filed the lawsuit against the DOE in federal court in San Francisco. [node:read-more:link]