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Cattle and sheep herds are being culled or completely liquidated on West Texas ranches as drought and heat bake away vegetation on the rocky hills and once fertile valleys.

EPA Region 7 announced today that it has issued administrative compliance orders to six concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs) in Iowa, Kansas and Nebraska, directing those operations to correct a range of violations of the federal Clean Water Act.

BRIAN WILLIAMS, anchor: Now we turn from politics to food prices, specifically a noticeable rise in prices. They’re way up in some cases, and the experts who watch these things say they’ll keep going up over the coming months as farmers struggle with bad weather and lousy harvests as a result. But is there any relief in sight?

Hay Hotline to offer hay pricing, listings for donated forage, transportation information and available grazing lands.

Listen up, urban dwellers. The Ohio State Fair opens today in Columbus, so here’s your chance to pretend you know a thing or two about agriculture. To help out, we’re offering a brief cattle primer to help you sort Holsteins from Herefords.

A record amount of corn was planted in Ohio this year, providing a sharp turnaround from a month ago when many farmers thought the entire season might get washed out by weeks of heavy rain.Some excellent weather in early June and increasingly advanced growing methods are credited with the change in fortunes.The amount of corn produced per acre isn’t expected to be at record levels because of the late start, but farmers and experts now think yields could at least be average.

Texas’ farmers and ranchers are coping with their eighth drought in the last 13 years, and this one, while still young, has a chance of slamming producers with their biggest losses ever, officials said.

The Agriculture Department would be barred, under language in a House appropriations bill, from proceeding with proposed marketing regulations opposed by major meatpackers and livestock trade groups.The House Agriculture Appropriations Subcommittee approved the draft fiscal 2012 spending bill, including the provision, by voice vote on Tuesday. The bill would provide $17.3 billion in discretionary funds to the Agriculture Department, Food and Drug Administration and related agencies, a $2.6 billion cut from fiscal 2011. The measure also includes $108 billion in mandatory funding, almost 3 percent more than in fiscal 2011.The policy rider would bar the Agriculture Department’s Grain Inspection Stockyard and Packers Administration (GIPSA) from producing a regulation requiring meatpackers to report and justify pricing agreements with livestock producers. The proposed rule, unveiled last year, was written in response to a 2008 farm law (PL 110-246) directive to review marketing and competition issues in the livestock industry.

The 2011 wheat crop has resulted in mainly low yields as harvest winds down for another season throughout the Lone Star State. Because of extreme drought conditions, the Kasberg Grain Co. in Miles, 73 miles southwest of Abilene, handled approximately 25 percent of normal volume compared with years with adequate rainfall.

$42 million budget on tap for coming year.