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Welcome to the new year, and a new, GOP-controlled Congress. Lawmakers are facing some tough debates and choices when the 119^th Congress kicks off Friday, starting off with Mike Johnson’s bid for re-election as House speaker.

The 119^th Congress kicks off today at noon, with the swearing in of new members – and the election of a House speaker. After meeting with conservative holdouts Thursday, Speaker Mike Johnson was expressing confidence that he’s going to get re-elected relatively easily. Johnson told Fox Business host Larry Kudlow that he thought the voting would take just one ballot.

The U.S. will consider whether to restrict drones made with Chinese and Russian parts over national security and espionage concerns, the Commerce Department said on Thursday, amid increasing drone adoption for agriculture uses. 

Jimmy Carter, the former president and statesman who died Sunday at 100, was famously proud of being a peanut farmer and is being remembered for working to address food insecurity through modern farming practices and technology, and for giving time to help his old industry. 

In 2024, rural America played a large role in carrying Donald Trump to the White House for a second time. Across the country, hurricanes damaged ag infrastructure in Florida, the Carolinas and the Southeastern U.S., and H5N1 spread to dairy cattle. 

After months of development, the farm bill passed out of the House Ag Committee with four Democratic votes and guarded optimism, but it never even made it to the House floor, ultimately leading to another one-year extension of the 2018 farm bill.

Brazilian corn producers could see record corn productivity in their summer season following favorable weather in growing regions, as analysts eye additional export opportunities for the sector under the Trump administration.

Mexico will likely overturn its import ban on genetically engineered corn but enact a domestic planting ban into law, President Claudia Sheinbaum said after a USMCA dispute panel sided with the U.S. last week. 

President-elect Donald Trump announced Sunday that he will tap Stephen Miran, a trade hawk who supports the use of tariffs as a revenue-raising tool, to serve as a top economic adviser in his incoming administration.

Some lawmakers are concerned about the future of a trade preference program for sub-Saharan Africa after a last-ditch effort to pass the bill this Congress fell short.

A UK social media storm around a new feed additive to curb greenhouse gas emissions from cattle highlights the threat misinformation poses to global agriculture trade and technological progress and could be a harbinger of future challenges, analysts tell Agri-Pulse.