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U.S. agriculture regulators pushing to overhaul food safety inspections at poultry slaughterhouses have not thoroughly evaluated several pilot projects, which critics have said could be jeopardizing food safety, according to a report released by the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) on Wednesday. The GAO report also said the U.S. Department of Agriculture failed to disclose accurate information about the data the department used to promote what the government calls "modernization" changes at the plants.

Researchers in the key corn-growing state of Illinois are finding significant damage from rootworms in farm fields planted in a rotation with a genetically modified corn, a combination of measures that are supposed to protect the crop from the pests, according to a new report. "It's very alarming," said Joe Spencer, an insect behaviorist with the Illinois Natural History Survey who is researching the issue.

Researchers in the key corn-growing state of Illinois are finding significant damage from rootworms in farm fields planted in a rotation with a genetically modified corn that is supposed to protect the crop from the pests, according to a new report. Evidence gathered from fields in two Illinois counties suggests that pest problems are mounting as the rootworms grow ever more resistant to efforts to fight them, including crop rotation combined with use of the biotech corn, according to the report issued by Michael Gray, a professor of crop sciences at the University of Illinois.

A critical water source for U.S. farmers and ranchers is being depleted at a rapid rate and nearly 70 percent of it will disappear within the next 50 years if the current trend does not change, according to a report issued this week. Thirty percent of the groundwater from a critical portion of what is known as the High Plains Aquifer already has been pumped and another 39 percent will be depleted over the next five decades, according to the report by environmental science and engineering experts published on Monday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

More than 150 U.S. farm and food businesses and organizations on Wednesday called for the U.S. Department of Agriculture to strengthen its oversight of field trials of experimental, genetically modified crops. The group includes organic and natural food industry representatives as well as family farm and trade policy players. It said the disarray in international markets after an unapproved genetically modified wheat developed by Monsanto Co was discovered growing unchecked in Oregon this spring is the latest example of the need to change GMO field trial regulations.

Farmland prices in key U.S. crop regions surged more than 25 percent over the past 12 months as demand for land remains strong despite a decline in farm income, two Federal Reserve bank reports said on Thursday. Prices paid for irrigated cropland in a central U.S. region that includes Kansas, Nebraska, Missouri, and Oklahoma jumped 25.2 percent from a year ago, according to a report by the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City.

U.S. chemical and seed company DuPont said on Wednesday it completed its three-year effort to buy a majority stake in South Africa's largest seed company, overcoming that country's stiff opposition to the foreign ownership with pledges to keep a rein on pricing and to aid small South African farmers. The deal with privately held Pannar Seed Ltd, a 55-year-old seed company, should provide immediate financial gain to DuPont, with new products expected to be on the market in August and September, according to Paul Schickler, president of DuPont Pioneer, DuPont's agricultural seed unit.

U.S. government investigators said on Monday they still have few answers as to how an unapproved genetically altered wheat developed by Monsanto was found this spring growing in an Oregon farm field, but said no further contamination has been detected and no biotech wheat appears to be in commercial supplies. The U.S. Department of Agriculture's Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) said its nearly three-month-old investigation has found no sign of the Monsanto Co variety, known as MON71800, in any seed or grain samples tested by government laboratories. The government also said it has interviewed nearly 270 farmers who reported no glyphosate-resistant wheat plants have been found in their fields.

A group of biotech seed companies on Monday launched an online forum to combat mounting opposition to genetically modified foods among consumer groups and activists. The website, www.GMOAnswers.com, is designed as a "central online resource" for information on genetically modified organisms and their use in agriculture and food production, the Biotechnology Industry Organization said.

Long-awaited rules aimed at improving the safety of foods imported to the United States were proposed by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration on Friday. The first-ever draft rules for safety oversight of imported food are part of a larger mandated food safety regulatory overhaul underway at the FDA, and part of a series of rules FDA is proposing that cover everything from vegetables and other produce to dog food.