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On the windswept prairies of the Oklahoma Panhandle, the hog barns of Prestage Farms are lined up like military barracks. The 20,000-sow operation near the Texas border stands at the front lines of a months-long battle to contain a virus that has already killed some 1.3 million hogs in the United States. Since June, when Porcine Epidemic Diarrhea virus, or PEDv, first hit, Prestage workers have quarantined the area, scrubbed vehicles and sprayed buildings with antiseptic. But those precautions have not stopped a virus that can kill 80 percent of piglets that contract it.

Six people and three companies, including an Indiana operation claiming to make biofuel from chicken fat and vegetable oils, were charged with defrauding investors and consumers out of more than $100 million, prosecutors in Indianapolis said on Wednesday. The indictment alleged four men operating E-Biofuels of Middletown, Indiana and two others with New Jersey-based Caravan Trading Co and CIMA Green conspired to exploit a government incentive program that offers tax credits for biofuel use.

The detection of a small amount of genetically modified material in a Washington state farmer's non-GMO alfalfa crop constitutes a "commercial issue" only and does not warrant any government action, the U.S. Department of Agriculture said on Tuesday. The Washington state farmer had complained in late August to state agricultural officials that his alfalfa hay had been rejected for export sale because of the presence of a genetically modified trait that makes the crop resistant to herbicide.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture is evaluating whether or not to take action in the case of a Washington state farmer whose alfalfa crop was contaminated with a genetically modified trait that some export customers will not accept, a spokesman said on Monday. "We're still in discussion with the Washington State Department of Agriculture to determine what if any actions are warranted, what our next steps will be," said USDA spokesman Ed Curlett.

Agriculture officials in Washington state are testing samples of alfalfa after a farmer reported his hay was rejected for export because it tested positive for a genetically modified trait that was not supposed to be in his crop. If it is confirmed that the alfalfa in question was genetically modified, it could have broad ramifications, said Hector Castro, spokesman at the Washington State Department of Agriculture.

A group of U.S. farmers, seed companies and others challenging patents on genetically altered crops held by biotech seed giant Monsanto Co. on Thursday appealed their case to the U.S. Supreme Court. The group, made up of 73 organic and conventional family farmers, seed companies and public advocacy interests, sued Monsanto in March 2011 seeking to prohibit the company from suing them if their fields became contaminated with Monsanto's patented genetic traits for corn, soybeans, cotton, canola, and other crops.

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.