Food & Farming · Saturday, 29 August 2026

01 Briefing what happened

One supermarket for 45,000 people, because a contract says nobody else may open

Food & Farming 1 min 44 sources

Rhode Island became the second US state to ban grocery restrictive covenants - deed clauses that forbid food being sold on a site for decades after a chain leaves. Woonsocket has at least three of them.

45,000

people, one supermarket

Woonsocket once had a grocer on many of its streets [1]

75 years

the longest clause found

buried in a 128-page condominium agreement [1]

$4m

paid to lift one clause

Washington DC bought a single site free of it [1]

3.7%

US inflation in July

unchanged from June, and above target for 65 months [4]

The lead story — what happened

Woonsocket, Rhode Island has about 45,000 residents and one full-service supermarket, a Price Rite at the edge of town. [1]
About 37% of the city is food insecure. Around 18% of residents have no car. [1]
The missing shops are not only economics. A chain that leaves can write into the deed or lease that no food may be sold there again. [1]
Woonsocket has at least three of these clauses. Stop and Shop left one behind in 2004. Walmart left another in 2011 that barred grocers and pharmacies. [1]
Rhode Island banned the practice in July. It is the second state to do it, after Washington. [1]
The ban does not undo the old ones. The seven the state has dug up so far stay until their terms run out. [1]
One of those ran for 75 years and sat inside a 128-page condominium agreement. Nobody knows the national total. [1]
Washington DC banned the clauses in 2017. It has also paid Safeway almost 4 million dollars to free a single site. [1]
Courts have mostly sided with the grocers, because antitrust law asks a plaintiff to prove a monopoly, and a rival store a few towns over defeats that. [1]
Stop and Shop holds 42% of Rhode Island's grocery market and is closing more stores. The ban was rushed partly to get ahead of that. [1]
American families are facing the biggest jump in grocery prices in half a century. [3]
US inflation held at 3.7% in July, the 65th month running above the Federal Reserve's 2% target. [4][5]
New York is trying the opposite fix. Its mayor wants five city-owned shops selling 30% below retail, and small grocers sued him on Monday. [2]

What is pushing on this

Sites held shut High→

three known clauses in one small city, and no public register of them [1]

States writing bans Building↑

Rhode Island banned them in July, and California's senate vote is the last stop before its governor [1]

Grocery prices High↑

the biggest jump in half a century, with inflation stuck at 3.7% [3][4]

The courts Steady→

judges have mostly sided with grocers, because a monopoly is hard to prove [1]

Who is involved

Sabina Matos, Rhode Island lieutenant governor — found the clause on the old Walmart; the ban is part of her grocery agenda Stop and Shop — holds 42% of the state's grocery market and is closing stores Michael Fernandez, independent grocer — says a covered site is one he cannot even look at Laurie Beyranevand, Vermont Law and Graduate Center — says antitrust law demands a monopoly proof that regional rivals defeat

How it unfolded

2004 Stop and Shop leaves Woonsocket, and leaves a clause on the site
2011 Walmart quits town, barring grocers and pharmacies from its old space
2017 Washington DC bans the clauses, and 20 new grocery stores open in five years
July 2026 Rhode Island becomes the second state to ban them
Next a California floor vote, and four senators asking the FTC what it can do

Where this points

Watch whether California's ban passes and whether the FTC says it can act. Only a federal rule would make these clauses findable everywhere, rather than town by town.

The rest of the day

33 more stories on this beat.

Each with its own sources. None of these is a link to the story above.

02
Mexico approves the first RNA pesticide

Mexico became the first country anywhere to approve commercial sale of an RNA-based fungicide. Oifirax, made by GreenLight Biosciences, carries molecules that switch off a gene the grape mildew fungus needs to build its cell membranes. Approval came on 12 August after a nine-month review, and the company plans a 50 to 100 million dollar plant in Mexico City. [6]

Why it matters — It is a pesticide that kills nothing directly. It hands the fungus an instruction and the fungus does the rest.
03
US corn condition hits a season low

The share of the US corn crop rated good or excellent fell to 57% in the week to 23 August. That is down from 60% a week earlier and 71% a year ago. It has fallen in five of the last six weeks. [7][8]

Why it matters — This crop is already made. What is left to settle is how much of it there is, and therefore the price.
04
USDA names the worst yield states

USDA forecasts Oklahoma at 95 bushels of corn an acre against a national 180.7, with South Carolina and Colorado next. Oklahoma also has the lowest soybean forecast at 28 bushels. [9][10]

Why it matters — The national average hides states where a farm's whole year is roughly half a normal one.
05
Grain prices climb on a smaller crop

December wheat rose 13 cents to 7.74 dollars a bushel on Friday, with Kansas City wheat at 8.35. [12] December corn had already been climbing, at 5.14 dollars on 24 August. [13] New-crop soybean sales are running at twice last year's pace. [12] A market adviser calls the damage to this crop death by a thousand cuts. [11]

Why it matters — A poorer harvest and closed Black Sea ports are pulling the same way at once.
06
Washington now pays 80% of an insurance premium

Federal subsidy for area add-on crop insurance was raised to 80% by the 2025 Farm Bill and earlier decisions. Farmers added 146 million insured acres across nine crops between the 2024 and 2026 crop years, and federal premium subsidies rose by nearly 3 billion dollars. [14]

Why it matters — The safety net under a bad harvest just got much larger, and much more of it is public money.
07
Czech farmers sell cattle for lack of feed

Drought has cut Czech feed harvests, and one farm southeast of Prague is at about half the haylage it needs. A bale of hay that cost about 500 now costs about 2,000, roughly four times more. Farms are sending bulls to slaughter early to protect the milking herd. [15]

Why it matters — A feed shortage does not show up as hunger. It shows up as animals sold before they were ready.
08
Europe's drought reaches the fish

Fish in a Danube side channel near Novi Sad are down to two shrinking ponds at over 30C. Czech fish farms are cutting feeding and aerating ponds. A Romanian producer says water policy favoured irrigation and left none for the fish. [16]

Why it matters — Carp take three or four years to grow, so a single dry summer is paid for again in each of the next three.
09
England stopped farmers watering crops

The Environment Agency suspended river irrigation for thousands of English farmers in July. One Suffolk grower on 300 hectares says half his crop is ruined. England faces a projected shortfall of 5 billion litres a day in public supply by 2055. [17]

Why it matters — The same shortage is being rationed in opposite directions in different countries.
10
Drought disaster declared in Puerto Rico

USDA declared a drought disaster for 26 of Puerto Rico's 78 municipalities, opening emergency loans to farmers. More than 33% of the island is in extreme drought. July was San Juan's driest month in over 120 years. [18]

Why it matters — A declaration unlocks borrowing, not water, and the loan still has to be repaid out of a failed harvest.
11
UN land talks close in Mongolia

Nearly 200 countries wrapped up UN desertification talks in Ulaanbaatar on Friday. Up to 40% of the world's land is now degraded, and droughts are appearing in places not thought vulnerable a decade ago. [19]

Why it matters — Degraded land holds less water, so the same rainfall produces a worse harvest than it used to.
12
China's crops hit by heat and floods

Heat and heavy rain have battered China's main corn, soybean and cotton regions since mid-July. China promised to buy 17 billion dollars of US farm goods a year through 2028, excluding soybeans, but has not made the large purchases expected. [20]

Why it matters — A damaged Chinese harvest is one of the few things that would force those purchases to start.
13
Robusta coffee's toughness called a myth

A new paper in Sustainable Development says robusta coffee is not the climate-proof bean the trade believes. Lead author Aaron Davis of Kew calls the idea an internet myth, and says earlier work treated irrigated farms as naturally suitable land. [21]

Why it matters — Robusta is heat-tolerant but drought-intolerant, so the resilience was really a hidden hosepipe.
14
Cheaper beef imports will not move the price much

Trump's plan lets up to 300,000 tonnes of ground beef in without the out-of-quota tariff. Livestock economists say that is about 2% of US supply and may take 25 to 35 cents off a pound. Ground beef averaged 6.89 dollars a pound last month, up nearly 57% in five years. [22]

Why it matters — The shortage is a shrunken cattle herd, and a quota does not breed a cow.
15
Canada's tariffs reach the fish counter

Canada begins collecting tariffs of 50, 25 and 15 percent on about 700 American products on 8 September, covering roughly 20 billion dollars of imports a year. A wide range of fresh and frozen fish is on the list. [23]

Why it matters — Retaliation lists are picked for political sting, and food is where a shopper feels it.
16
Alfalfa sprout outbreak spans 15 states

The CDC says it knows of at least 55 illnesses across 15 states linked to alfalfa sprouts from Everything Sprouts, a Minnesota grower, with four people hospitalised. Unusually, the outbreak involves both salmonella and Shiga-toxin E coli. [24]

Why it matters — Sprouts are grown warm and damp, which is also what the bacteria want, so one contaminated seed lot infects everything.
17
24,900 pounds of chicken recalled as uninspected

Shanghai Ravioli Corporation of Boston recalled about 24,900 pounds of frozen buffalo chicken made without inspection. The packs carried a false inspection mark, establishment number 18004, which holds no federal grant. [25]

Why it matters — The stamp on a pack is a claim, and this is the rare week the claim itself was the fake.
18
Every plant-based product tested held a fungal toxin

Researchers at Parma and Cranfield tested 212 plant-based meat substitutes and milks sold in the UK. Every one contained at least one of 19 mycotoxins, all below EU guideline levels. [29]

Why it matters — The ingredients are grains, legumes and seeds, which pick up mould in the field or in store.
19
Ultra-processed food linked to prostate cancer

A study of 17,024 US men in The American Journal of Medicine looked at ultra-processed food. Those eating the most had a 24% to 31% higher prostate cancer risk, after adjusting for age, smoking, race and poverty. These foods supply about 60% of US adult calories. [30]

Why it matters — It is one observational study, so it shows a link and not a cause. The size of the exposure is what makes it matter.
20
42 rival ways to score a food's health

A review in Nature Food found 42 different nutrient profile models behind front-of-pack labels worldwide. Only nine showed convergent validity and three criterion validity. All limit sugar; most limit salt and saturated fat. [31]

Why it matters — Countries are not disagreeing about the food. They are disagreeing about the formula that judges it.
21
Three in four English school menus break the rules

A report on 391 English state secondary schools found breaches in three of every four menus. At 206 schools, banned high-fat, sugar or salt snacks were on sale, including at breakfast. 224 schools served meat products such as burgers and nuggets more often than the twice a week allowed. [32]

Why it matters — The standards have existed for years, and this is what a rule with nobody checking it looks like.
22
Bluetongue spreads through British livestock

Bluetongue serotype 3 has now been found on eight farms in Dumfries and Galloway, in nine sheep and 58 cattle. England confirmed 19 new cases in one day, and Wales four. Movement of susceptible animals now needs a licence. Zoos and animal parks in south-west England have stayed open through it. [33][34]

Why it matters — Midges carried the virus north on the wind, which is why a movement ban is a partial defence at best.
23
USDA sets a review cycle for screwworm

APHIS published a roadmap putting its New World Screwworm response playbook on a quarterly review, taking stakeholder feedback and revising guidance each cycle. [35]

Why it matters — The pest keeps moving, and a fixed plan written once ages faster than the outbreak does.
24
Louisiana shrimpers land a full boat worth nothing

A Louisiana shrimper came home from 13 days at sea, his longest trip, with a 40,000-pound haul. A pound fetched 2.00 dollars in May and 1.80 dollars now. Shrimpers are seeking protection from Washington. [36]

Why it matters — A good catch and a good year are different things once imports set the price.
25
Pacific marine monuments opened to fishing

The administration is trying to roll back protections around Palmyra Atoll and other US Pacific marine monuments, opening nearby waters to commercial fishing. The four monuments form the largest US conservation area. [37]

Why it matters — Protected water works as a nursery, so what is caught at the edge partly comes from what breeds inside.
26
Australia's matcha habit doubles

Matcha orders in Australian cafes rose 133% year on year, driven by customers under 35, with an iced matcha latte at about 8 Australian dollars. Japan's growers are already strained by the demand. [38]

Why it matters — Shade-grown tea takes years to plant and weeks to process, so a taste can change faster than the supply can.
27
A solar farm on Lincolnshire farmland heads for court

Beacon Fen Energy Park near Sleaford was approved by the government and could power up to 130,000 homes. Lincolnshire County Council is seeking legal advice on a judicial review, arguing it takes fertile land out of food production. [39]

Why it matters — Both uses are national priorities, and the same flat, sunny, well-drained ground suits each of them.
28
Houseflies used to track a cattle virus

Researchers sampled flies at a farm during a lumpy skin disease outbreak and found the virus's genetic material in common houseflies. The signal fell across successive rounds as control measures took hold. [40]

Why it matters — Testing insects can read an outbreak without catching and bleeding every animal on the farm.
29
An Oxfordshire farm returns to old wheat

Henry Astor grows and mills heritage wheat at Bruern Farms and sells flour direct to bakers. The farm has planted 30,000 to 40,000 trees and now holds 18 red-listed bird species. Britain has lost 73 million birds since 1970. [41]

Why it matters — Selling flour rather than grain is what pays for a lower-yielding wheat.
30
Lindt goes all-certified as cocoa stays dear

Lindt and Spruengli says all its cocoa will come from Rainforest Alliance certified suppliers from this year, alongside a new 100% cocoa bar. Poor harvests in the main growing countries have pushed cocoa costs to records. [42]

Why it matters — When an ingredient gets dear, brands sell less of it at a higher price and call it premium.
31
Drink premiums lagged inflation for four years

Global drinks prices per litre rose 1% in 2025 against 4% inflation, and have trailed inflation every year since 2022. An industry analyst says the premium story needs rechecking with inflation stripped out. [43]

Why it matters — A rising price is not proof anyone traded up, and it is the same trap in every grocery aisle.
32
Farmers told to lobby EPA over fuel exemptions

EPA is reviewing 34 small-refinery exemption requests from the Renewable Fuel Standard, and estimates say granting them could free 1.2 to 1.8 billion compliance credits. Biofuel and soybean groups are urging farmers to object. [26]

Why it matters — Every exempted gallon is a gallon of ethanol nobody has to blend, and that is corn demand removed.
33
USDA puts $125m into school meals

USDA and HHS announced Harvest to Hallways on 24 August, with more than 125 million dollars committed. That includes up to 70 million for cafeteria kitchens and up to 25 million in new Farm to School grants for 2026. [27][28]

Why it matters — School kitchens lost the equipment to cook from raw ingredients, so buying local food needs somewhere to cook it.
34
The Fed says inflation is still too high

Fed chair Kevin Warsh told a gathering of economists and central bankers in Wyoming that inflation remains too high, and investors read his remarks as leaning toward a rate rise. [44]

Why it matters — Higher rates raise the cost of the credit farms and grocers run on, months before it reaches a shelf price.

02 Lesson why it matters

Somebody paid for nothing to be there

A company can leave a town and still hold the right to stop anyone selling food where its shop once stood.

The twist

A market prices what gets built and puts no price at all on what is forbidden to be built. So the cheapest thing you can own in a town is the guarantee that nobody else may open.

How it works

A chain closes a shop and gives up the building
On the way out it writes one line into the deed: no food sold here
It now owns no shop, no staff, no stock and no rent - only the line
The line costs nothing to keep, and runs for 30, 50, sometimes 75 years
So what the town may sell is set by a company that left in 2004

Where you've seen this

Employment contracts

a non-compete buys a former worker's absence from the trade, not their work

Drug patents

a company can buy a patent to keep a rival's product off the shelf, never to make it

Empty land

a developer can hold a plot vacant for years because a rival building there would cost more

The catch

Banning the clause does not build a shop. Rhode Island's ban is not retroactive, so its known clauses run their course, and Washington DC had to pay nearly 4 million dollars to buy one out.

And the whole of it

Almost every high street has one of these behind it somewhere, and none of us can see them. The reason your street has no bakery may be one sentence in a document nobody has opened since 1998. Whoever wrote it was not thinking about you. It did not need to be.

03 Lab your turn

The Closing Store

Rehearse buying the absence of a competitor, and see how much cheaper it is than trading.

04 Truth what's really going on

What is really going on

A town with one supermarket for 45,000 people looks like plain decline, but private contracts forbid anyone selling food on its best empty sites.

Why it works on us — Absence has no picture. A closed store looks like a place nobody wanted to trade, so the explanation everyone reaches for is decline, and the sentence in the deed is never suspected.

Who gains

Stop and Shop — It holds 42% of Rhode Island's grocery market, and every clause it left behind keeps a rival off a ready-built site while it closes its own stores. [1]
The Dollar General in Woonsocket — With one full-service supermarket left in the city, its frozen meat and packaged food are the nearest alternative for people without a car. [1]
Crop insurers and the farms with the most acres — The federal subsidy on area add-on cover went to 80%, and 146 million more acres were insured in two years at nearly 3 billion dollars more public cost. [14]
Small oil refiners — Exemptions from the fuel-blending rule would free between 1.2 and 1.8 billion compliance credits they would otherwise have to buy. [26]
Whoever holds the tariff-free beef quota — Trump said the beef would be sold 25% below current market prices, while economists expect shoppers to see only 25 to 35 cents off a pound. [22]

Who pays

Woonsocket residents without a car — About 18% have no vehicle, and the one full-service supermarket sits at the top of a hill on the edge of the city. [1]
Independent grocers — A covered site is one they cannot bid on at all, and a full supermarket needs at least 30,000 square feet with heavy plumbing and power, which is rare. [1]
American cattle ranchers — Cheaper imported ground beef arrives while the herd is still small, and the price fall reaching shoppers is put at 25 to 35 cents a pound. [22]
Corn growers, if the fuel exemptions land — Each exempted gallon is ethanol nobody has to blend, which is corn demand removed in a year the crop is already smaller. [7][26]
Czech and Romanian livestock and fish producers — Feed costs have roughly quadrupled and ponds are being drained, so animals are sold early and the fish cycle restarts from behind. [15][16]

What nobody knows yet

Open questions from across today’s stories — ours included.

01

How many grocery restrictive covenants exist in the United States.

There is no register. Rhode Island has found seven by searching business listings, city databases and hundreds of pages of property records. In California an advocate calls the extent the million-dollar question. [1]
02

Whether banning them actually opens shops.

Washington DC saw 20 new stores in the five years after its 2017 ban, but the reporting says it is unclear how much of that the ban caused. New Zealand's country-wide ban only dates to 2022. [1]
03

How much of this year's US corn crop is really lost.

The condition rating has fallen five weeks out of six to 57%, and a market adviser calls it death by a thousand cuts, but the harvest has not been counted. [7][11]
04

Whether ultra-processed food causes prostate cancer or travels with something that does.

The study measured 17,024 men at one point in time and adjusted for age, smoking, race and poverty. That design shows a link. It cannot show a cause. [30]
05

Whether the fungal toxins found in every plant-based product tested matter at the doses people eat.

All 212 products were below EU guideline levels. The researchers say the open question is cumulative exposure over years, which nobody has measured. [29]
06

How large the EPA's fuel exemptions will be.

Thirty-four requests are under review, and estimates of the credits freed range from 1.2 billion to 1.8 billion. The agency has not published its decision. [26]
07

Whether China will start the farm purchases it promised.

Beijing pledged 17 billion dollars a year of US farm goods through 2028, excluding soybeans, and has not made the large non-soybean buys expected since May. [20]
08

How much drought damage Europe's fish farms carry forward.

Carp run on a three or four year cycle, so this summer's losses land in three future harvests, and no producer has published a figure yet. [16]

05 Hope carry this

The clause that shaped Woonsocket's food supply sat unread in a property file for years, until one official went looking and found it. Things hidden that well are usually still findable, and somebody is usually looking.