**Romaine lettuce is back on store shelves after a recent E. coli outbreak stopped salads at both grocers and restaurants, and science could be partly to blame.

The FDA recalled all romaine because detecting pathogens such as E. coli can currently take up to three days.

But, according to agrimarketing.com, a Purdue University research team believes it can close that window for finding the dangerous microorganisms to just hours.

Researchers say the new system could at least triple the analyses a lab could perform in a single shift.

**Foodmakers will be required to put special labels on packages of foods made with GMO ingredients effective January 1, of next year.

Agriculture.com reports, the nationwide labeling law was enacted more than two years ago to prevent a state-by-state patchwork of labeling laws and to settle the national debate over the foods, which the FDA says are safe to eat.

Instead of GMO, the USDA decided to use the term “bioengineered food,” which will carry a BE symbol.

**When Democrats take control of the House this month, farm policy traditionalist and ethanol supporter Collin Peterson, of Minnesota, is the odds-on favorite to chair the Ag Committee.

agriculture.com reports, he would be the first person since the Eisenhower era to chair the committee twice.

The fiscal conservative says he’ll vote to pass the Trump-negotiated USMCA, the successor to NAFTA, in the new year.

 

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