The world’s largest pork producer, Smithfield Foods, said this week they’ve moved 87 percent of their pregnant sows out of gestation crates to group housing. The company is also on track to eliminate all gestation crates by the end of this year. If the company can complete the transition, it would complete a ten-year plan that began back in 2007. The move is seen as a win for the Humane Society of the U.S., which has led successful ballot initiatives in nine states to outlaw the crates. However, the Humane Society is not satisfied with the progress. President Wayne Pacelle is happy with the reforms but notes that cruel treatment continues. Pacelle noted in a blog post, “While Smithfield is moving toward group housing, it’s still confining pregnant sows into cramped spaces for several weeks at the beginning of their pregnancies. This is cruel, and if sows must be individually housed for a period, there’s no reason to give them a space so small they can’t turn around.”

Iowa agribusiness leader Bruce Rastetter is a Republican mega-donor who wants the incoming Trump administration to block mergers in the works between large seed and chemical companies. The deals between Bayer and Monsanto, DuPont and Dow, along with ChemChina and Syngenta are worth billions of dollars. Rastetter tells the Des Moines Register that the deals will limit competition, raise costs for farmers, and stunt job growth. He adds, “These mergers would accomplish the opposite of what the President-elect ran on, and that’s greater opportunity in America.” Rastetter says the motivation behind the deals is a clear one: “To increase prices and production costs for producers.” He says the federal government’s long and costly approval process for new biotech products and patent licenses is the driving force behind these mergers. Rastetter will press the administration and Congress to focus on changing regulations to make it easier for small businesses to compete, thereby improving competition and choices in the marketplace. The Committee on Foreign Investments in the United State signed off on the ChemChina purchase of Syngenta last year but that deal still faces more scrutiny in other countries.

The American Petroleum Institute wants regulatory relief from the incoming Donald Trump administration. During an annual event in Washington D.C. this week, API CEO Jack Gerard says 2016 could be a banner year, but only if Congress and the administration permit it. Gerard pointed to the Endangered Species Act and the Renewable Fuel Standard, according to Agri-Pulse. API has long supported repeal or significant reform of the RFS, and Gerard says legislation capping biofuel blending demand could be introduced in the new Congress. Ethanol groups called a similar bill introduced last year “flawed” and lacking logic. Gerard says the RFS “constrains free market forces” and limits consumer choice. President-elect Trump pledged his support for the RFS on the campaign trail and sources close to his transition team say his pick to lead the Environmental Protection Agency, Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt, will also support biofuels. Pruitt, however, has been a vocal critic of the RFS in the past. But in a meeting with Midwest Senators Thursday, Pruitt said he would “follow the law” when it comes to the RFS.

A majority of Canadians support applying new tariffs on U.S. goods if the U.S. pulls out of the North American Free Trade Agreement. A new study for Canada’s CTV News Network finds Nearly 50 percent of Canadians said they support and 26 percent said they somewhat support new tariffs on American goods if the U.S. were to pull out of NAFTA and apply new tariffs and duties on Canadian goods. U.S. President-elect Donald Trump has said that he would renegotiate or pull out of the trade agreement with Canada and Mexico once he is in office. Throughout the election campaign, he referred to NAFTA as the “worst deal” the U.S. ever signed. 60 percent of those polled in Canada believe if Trump does retract from NAFTA, Canada would be unlikely to negotiate a better trade deal with the United States.

Former Georgia Governor Sonny Purdue may be the leading candidate to become Agriculture Secretary, but the Trump transition team continues to meet with others. Politico Thursday said again Purdue is the likely nominee, the same day Indiana farmer Kip Tom was spotted at Trump Tower. Tom is a 7th generation Indiana farmer who lost a Republican primary bid to represent the 3rd Congressional District of Indiana. Members of the Trump team this week said the President-elect is searching for the “most qualified” person to run the department. Former California Lieutenant Governor Abel Maldonado was also considered to be the leader of the pack earlier this week. However, some lobbyists have pointed out that Maldonado supported the Humane Society of the United States in the fight over the housing for egg-laying chickens in California, according to the Hagstrom Report. Meanwhile, two more have joined the Trump USDA landing team: Russell Laird, vice president for federal relations at the National Rural Utilities Cooperative Finance Corp., and Lance Kotschwar, chief ethics & compliance officer and vice president for government and industry affairs at the Gavilon Group.

ChemChina and Syngenta were issued an extension by European Union antitrust regulators to comply with the regulator’s request. The EU has extended the deadline for a decision on ChemChina’s proposed buy of Swiss group Syngenta by ten working days to April 12th, according to Reuters. Syngenta said in a statement the two companies had asked for the extension to allow “sufficient time for the discussion of remedy proposals”. The European Commission opened the investigation into state-owned ChemChina’s $43 billion bid in October, saying the companies had not alleviated concerns over the deal. Syngenta said in a statement the two companies remain “fully committed” to the transaction and are “confident of its closure.”

Outgoing Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack is expected to become the next president and CEO of the U.S. Dairy Export Council when he leaves office later this month. Vilsack has not confirmed the plans, but a source familiar with the intentions told Agri-Pulse Vilsack will take the place of Tom Suber, who retired at the end of the year from the Council. The U.S. Dairy Export Council is funded by checkoff revenue to track and promote U.S. dairy products. Vilsack says that until he leaves his post at USDA, he is focused on his current job with “several items to get across the finish line.” He says he has nothing currently to say about “life after the administration.” Vilsack has publicly spoken previously, however, regarding his interest in working in farm policy once he leaves USDA.

As President-elect Donald Trump thins his list of major nominations to make before he takes office later this month, the agriculture industry is getting restless while waiting for his pick to lead the Department of Agriculture. There’s been a flurry of meetings and rumors since his election in November, but the industry continues to wait. A nomination was expected this week and was thought to be former Georgia Governor Sonny Perdue, but that gave way to former California Lieutenant Governor Abel Maldonado. The Trump transition team Wednesday said Trump continues to meet with highly qualified candidates. Former USDA Secretary John Block perhaps said it best, saying: “It’s very risky to think you know anything, because you don’t,” according to Politico. Meanwhile, Jerry Hagstrom of the Hagstrom Report wrote in the National Journal this week that “damage has already been done,” citing a lobbyist who said “ag is going to start saying that Trump doesn’t care about us.” It is believed this is the longest wait for a USDA Secretary nomination by an incoming president since Henry Wallace, who was nominated by Franklin D. Roosevelt in March of 1933, according to a U.S. Senate historical book. While the nomination cannot come until after Trump is sworn in, most President-elect’s have announced who the nominee will be well before Inauguration Day.