**Agriculture productivity IS expanding around the world, but not accelerating fast enough to sustainably feed the world by 2050.

According to Agri-Pulse, that’s one of the key takeaways from the Global Harvest Initiative’s eighth annual Global Agricultural Productivity Report. It’s the fourth straight year that total factor productivity has lagged behind need.

According to the index, currently at 1.66 percent, Global Ag productivity must increase 1.75 percent annually to meet the demands of the nearly 10 billion people expected to inhabit the planet by 2050.

**The House is poised to give quick approval to a Senate-passed budget resolution that will clear the way for a tax-cut bill without requiring any reduction in farm bill spending.

As reported in Agri-Pulse, a version of the fiscal 2018 budget blueprint approved by the House earlier this month included instructions to reduce agriculture spending by $10 billion. The Senate version included no such requirement, and the measure was amended with a series of unrelated changes reportedly intended to allow the House to swiftly approve the new version this week.

**In a letter to farm state Senators, EPA administrator Scott Pruitt says his agency is abandoning proposed changes to the Renewable Fuel Standard.

According to Brownfield, Pruitt says the EPA will keep renewable fuel volume mandates for next year at levels equal to or greater than those the agency proposed in July, reversing a proposal to cut the levels for biodiesel and cellulosic ethanol.

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