China booked 470,000 metric tons of U.S. soybeans for delivery in the 2026-27 marketing year — the first such purchase since President Donald Trump met Chinese leader Xi Jinping in Washington last month. The sale is the one hard number in a week otherwise dominated by warnings that the trade fight has already done lasting damage to U.S. export relationships.

Sen. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., told reporters that Canadian resentment over Trump's tariff war will outlast the dispute itself, and his state's wine industry is paying the price now.

"Canadians may love our wine, but they don't love America at the moment," Schiff said on a press call. "I think there's going to be some long-standing ill will to deal with for a lot of our producers in California and elsewhere throughout the country."

Schiff traveled to Alberta and Ottawa last week. Alberta is one of the few Canadian provinces still selling American wine, but he found stores posting signs steering shoppers toward alternatives. "There's American wine on the shelf, but they're openly indicating to Canadian consumers where they can find alternatives," he said. The shelf space exists; the goodwill around it does not.

Schiff also said Democrats, if they flip both chambers in the 120th Congress, would hold "enormous" leverage in budget talks, run oversight hearings and vote to end Trump's tariffs. He said he still hopes Congress can pass a lame-duck farm bill regardless of the election outcome.

What does the EPA's refinery proposal mean for fuel prices?

The Fueling American Jobs Coalition — independent oil firms and union workers — is fighting EPA's plan to fully reallocate additional 2025 small refinery exemption volumes onto other refiners. The group claims the plan threatens gasoline and diesel price increases beyond those already expected from biofuel-blending rules.

"EPA should pursue a balanced policy that supports American agriculture without sacrificing fuel affordability, refinery jobs, or domestic energy production," the coalition said.

Renewable fuel producers and farmers reject the price-increase claim outright. They argue the Renewable Fuel Standard lowers pump costs and expands demand for domestically grown fuel. The dispute lands weeks before the Nov. 3 congressional elections.

The Senate map complicates any farm-bill or RFS math. Sabato's Crystal Ball at the University of Virginia Center for Politics rates five Republican-held Senate seats — Kansas, Iowa, Maine, Ohio and Texas — as toss-ups. Republicans need four of the five to keep the chamber. The forecaster notes all but Maine are red states, so "it shouldn't surprise anyone if Republicans hold on." In Mississippi, GOP Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith's race moved from "Likely Republican" to "Lean Republican."

Where will $60 million in DOE funding go?

The Energy Department's Alternative Fuels and Feedstocks Office plans to award up to $60 million for "high impact" technologies covering fuels, feedstocks, fertilizers and chemicals, drawing on existing U.S. biomass, hydrogen and pipeline resources. A funding notice is expected in November.

DOE will also unveil a process Wednesday letting biofuel producers extract full value from the 45Z tax credit even when their fuel, feedstock or pathway falls outside existing guidance.

"One size does not fit all," said Monte Shaw, executive director of the Iowa Renewable Fuels Association. "Today's action by the DOE is good news for biofuel producers. While default values are a good starting point, they don't tell the whole story." A fix is coming for producers the default tables left behind.

Why are biologicals still stuck at the lab-to-field gap?

Biofertilizers and biostimulants could cut farmers' chemical fertilizer bills, but a new report from the National Security Commission on Emerging Biotechnology identifies the bottlenecks:

• Inconsistent definitions and regulatory pathways at federal and state levels, creating uncertainty for developers moving to field testing and commercialization.
• Gaps between lab results and field performance, producing "mismatches between crops and the microbes meant to help them."

The commission wants a coordinated national biotechnology strategy, an Independent Investment Fund at the Treasury Department to bridge developers from lab to market, a network of manufacturing facilities to scale bioindustrial products, and a centralized database of soil, microbial, environmental, genomic and longitudinal field data. All of it requires congressional action, which a lame-duck session may or may not deliver.

What is happening to SNAP participation?

SNAP enrollment fell to its lowest level in 17 years in June, and the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities says the economy does not explain the drop. Since the One Big Beautiful Bill Act took effect in July 2025, participation has fallen by more than 5 million people — a 13% decline — including about 2 million children.

"The number of people receiving SNAP food assistance has declined sharply in recent months, even though there is no sign that the decline is due primarily to an improving economy," the center said. Congress will face pressure to account for that drop when it revisits nutrition spending in the next farm bill.

What about the Gerber lawsuit?

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton sued Gerber Products Company and Nestlé USA in Collin County District Court, alleging Gerber baby food contained dangerous levels of arsenic, lead, mercury and cadmium.

"Gerber promised parents its food was safe and rigorously tested. Its own tests showed toxic metals in the food," Paxton said. "When a company makes promises about what parents feed their babies, I will hold it accountable."

The petition says that from 2017 to 2019, Gerber used rice flour batches with arsenic above the federal limit, and that internal testing showed lead in sweet potatoes and cadmium in carrots. Texas seeks an injunction blocking the companies from calling the food safe. The suit's outcome will test how far state food-safety claims reach against major processors.

With soybean sales resuming but wine shutters narrowing and SNAP rolls contracting, the November elections will decide who sets the terms of the next farm bill.