The United States and China have been involved in a trade dispute for most of 2018. The so-called trade war did not directly affect agriculture until April, when China proposed a 25 percent levy on 106 U.S. product imports worth $50 billion, including many agricultural commodities.

The Foundation for Food and Agriculture Research (FFAR) plans to offer as much as $6 million in prizes for the development of technologies that can accurately and quickly determine the gender of layer chick eggs before they hatch, also known as in-ovo sexing.