February 14, 2026
Spotlight Stories
Spotlight 1 – AgFunder News hosts a guest article on why food production is the foundation of healthy diets. Ready the story, here.
Spotlight 2 – The Clean Air Task Force says we must put farmers at the center of methane action if we wish to accelerate emissions reductions in the agriculture sector. Check it out, here.
Spotlight 3 – Offrange looks into a new machine that can evaluate the nutrient density of foods. Take a read, here.
Industry Updates
The Trump administration re-approved the use of pesticide dicamba for spraying on top of genetically modified cotton and soybean crops, drawing swift backlash from environmental groups and the Make America Healthy Again movement. The move comes despite federal courts in 2020 and 2024 striking down the Environmental Protection Agency’s previous approvals of the contentious weedkiller. Agricultural industry giant Bayer, which acquired dicamba when it bought Monsanto, welcomed the news and said the chemical would be marketed under the name ‘Stryax.’ [link]
A new €1.45 million project on soil health and regenerative agriculture has been launched by Ireland’s Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine. Project Baseline is a European Innovation Partnership (EIP) that will run over the next four years with the aim to “increase our collective understanding of regenerative agriculture in the Irish context”. The project received funding from Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine under a recent call for EIP project proposals in the area of environmental sustainability. Funds will be delivered through BASE (biodiversity, agriculture, soil and environment) Ireland, a network of farmers, agriculture professionals and agronomists who promote conservation in agriculture. [link]
The university of Hawaii has received a new $2 million funding grant for wildfire and land-use research, including approaches built around agroforestry. Researchers say the new funding will help address one of the underlying drivers of wildfire risk across the islands: large areas of former plantation land now overrun with unmanaged, fire-prone invasive grasses. Multiple UH units are collaborating with watershed partnerships, ranchers and community-based organizations to analyze the costs and benefits of different landscape-scale fire mitigation strategies. The project will examine approaches such as reforestation, agroforestry, green firebreaks, managed grazing and agricultural conversion, and compare them with current stopgap measures such as repeated mowing. [link]
The nonprofit Trees Forever has been selected for a federal grant to accelerate tree conservation work across Iowa, including the implementation of agroforestry. The company has received one of six Land Scale Restoration grants — which fund projects tackling large-scale forest threats like wildfires and invasive species — from the U.S. Forest Service. The grant will fund outreach to landowners, local governments, and land management agencies to help strengthen agroforestry practices statewide. In total, the national Forest Service is supporting the nonprofit’s agroforestry work by funding $367,788 over the course of three years, ending in the first half 2028. [link]
A research team at the University of Georgia, Iowa State University, and the University of Nebraska at Lincoln, is working to build a farming tool that combines tiny sensors, simple hardware, software and machine learning that listens to plants and soil in real time and gives farmers clear guidance on when and where to irrigate or fertilize. The research effort is funded by USDA’s National Institute of Food and Agriculture (NIFA) and has developed a family of miniature sensors that attach to leaves or insert into plant stalks or the soil. Each device costs only a few dollars to make and is backed by a small solar panel that recharges the battery together with a low-power radio that sends data to a nearby internet-connected gateway. Sensor readings are combined with drone images, satellite data and a proven crop-growth model. Machine-learning software merges these signals into a digital twin. This digital twin mirrors the real field and updates throughout the day. [link]
The U.S. Department of Agriculture faces mounting doubts about the reliability of its data from farmers, grain traders and economists following deep staff losses and a sharp upward revision in how many acres of corn were harvested for 2025. Thousands of employees left USDA last year as part of President Donald Trump’s drive to shrink the federal government, and experts worry the shrinking staff hobbled the agency’s ability to produce accurate and timely data. USDA’s final estimates in January for how many corn acres farmers planted and harvested in 2025 represented unprecedented increases from initial estimates in June. The revisions prompted USDA’s National Agricultural Statistics Service, which releases acreage estimates, to launch an internal review, said Lance Honig, a top NASS official. [link]
Oregon’s U.S. Senator Jeff Merkley and U.S. Representative Andrea Salinas (OR-06) are leading the reintroduction of the Soil Conservation And Regeneration Education (Soil CARE) Act. The bicameral bill would create a training program and curriculum to ensure that farmers and ranchers have access to information and tools to improve long-term soil health management, navigate degraded lands, promote profitability, and increase resilience to climate chaos-fueled extreme weather events like floods and droughts. [link]
Two University of Nebraska–Lincoln scientists, partnering with American Farmland Trust and four Nebraska farmers, have established a biochar on-farm research network - among the first and largest in the United States. According to ongoing research at Nebraska, applying biochar to agricultural soil is a promising approach to building healthy soils and promoting long-term, input-efficient agroecosystems. Biochar is produced by pyrolyzing or combusting organic waste biomass at high temperatures under low-oxygen conditions. [link]
Kraft Heinz is pumping the brakes on its breakup plan. The company announced that it is pausing work on a planned split between its condiment and grocery staples businesses. New CEO, Steve Cahillane, remarked “since joining the company, I have seen that the opportunity is larger than I expected and that many of our challenges are fixable.” Cahillane said that his top priority is returning the business to profitable growth and that the company would no longer pursue a split this year. The food giant had previously announced in September that it planned to split its business into two companies, unwinding an industry megamerger that married two packaged-food behemoths. [link]
The Swedish-based drinks manufacturer Oatly has been banned from using the word “milk” to market its plant-based products, after a ruling by the UK supreme court. The alt-milk manufacturer has been in a long-running legal battle with the trade association Dairy UK after Oatly trademarked phrases associated with the dairy sector. On Wednesday the supreme court unanimously ruled that Oatly can no longer trademark, or use, the slogan “Post Milk Generation”. [link]
Farmers now have more reasons to consider rotating their crops, according to new research from the University of Alberta. Widely used to restore soil health, crop rotation boosts the diversity of bacterial and fungal microbes that benefit soil function, according to the study published in Nature Communications. Researchers analyzed the results of 148 published studies worldwide that used modern DNA sequencing to provide more accurate data on soil microbial diversity. They found that crop rotation raises both the number and overall diversity of bacterial species in soil. [link]
A new study explores how farming practices and farmer beliefs shape soil microbiome functions and crop health. The research analyzed survey responses and soil samples from organic farmers across New York. Scientists examined how management decisions affect microbial diversity and how these microbes support plant defenses. Laboratory tests showed that soils with healthier microbiomes helped pea plants better withstand aphid attacks. Three management practices were strongly connected to positive microbiome outcomes. These included limiting soil disturbance through no-till systems or raised beds, planting cover crops such as rye and warm-season grasses, and using precise watering methods instead of broadcast irrigation. The study also found that recent use of pesticides and insecticides harmed beneficial microbes and reduced plant defense abilities. Compost use showed variable effects, depending on soil conditions. [link]
The Board of Trustees of the Norwegian EAT Foundation has decided to begin an orderly wind down of the Foundation’s operations in Oslo during 2026. Initiated in 2013 and formally established in 2016 as a non-profit foundation, EAT has played a global convening and agenda-setting role in advancing evidence-based approaches to food-system transformation. This decision is taken against a backdrop of profound change in the international donor landscape, where funding priorities and conditions have shifted significantly. The Board concluded that EAT’s current organizational and funding model is not sufficiently resilient for sustainable and ambitious operations in the years ahead. In parallel, the Board and management are actively exploring new pathways and models with aligned actors and donors to enable selected flagship initiatives to continue and, where possible, scale beyond the current setup. [link]
In Case You Missed It…
In late January, Whole Foods Market approved the Soil & Climate Initiative (SCI) as a regenerative agriculture certification program, unlocking market opportunities for farmers and suppliers dedicated to soil health and climate resilience. See more, here.