Brazil has indicted 63 people for their role in a corruption scheme within the nation’s Ministry of Agriculture. Drovers Cattle Network reports the charges allege federal auditors at meat processing facilities took bribes for years in exchange for fraudulent sanitary permits. Suspects in the case are charged with falsifying medical records and certificates, tampering with food products, conspiracy and corruption. Allegations also include selling spoiled meat and injecting water to sell poultry at higher prices. Police also reported that the producers under investigation used chemical ingredients, in quantities far above the legally permitted amount, to “disguise the physical aspect or smell of rotten meat.” Brazil is the world’s largest beef exporter, but after the investigation was announced, the nation saw exports drop to near zero within a week. Most export sales have resumed since. The U.S. Department of Agriculture last month said none of the slaughter or processing facilities implicated in the Brazilian scandal had shipped meat products to the United States.

An online petition is seeking a ban on beef imports to the U.S. from Brazil. Posted on the White House’s We the People Website, the petition cites Brazil’s tainted meat scandal in asking the administration to ban “unsafe imports” from Brazil until all beef in the U.S. is sold with a country-of-origin label. Food Safety News reports the petition was filed April 13th with the goal of collecting 100,000 signatures in 30 days to get a response from the Trump White House. The online petition states: “This petition will benefit the largest segment of American agriculture – the U.S. cattle industry, as well as protect American consumers.” The petition is backed by the Ranchers-Cattlemen Action Legal Fund or R-CALF USA. R-CALF has long been a supporter of country-of-origin meat labeling. However, Congress in 2015 voted to take the U.S. COOL law off the books after the World Trade Organization approved trade retaliations by Mexico and Canada of more than $1 billion as a result of the law.

Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin says getting tax reform legislation on the President’s desk by August appears unlikely. Mnuchin told the Financial Times this week the tax reform timeline is “highly aggressive, to not realistic at this point,” in referring to his prior comments on finishing tax reform by August. He cites health care reforms as the delaying factor, but still expects tax reform to be completed sometime in 2017. Farm groups, including the American Farm Bureau Federation, have testified to Congress on the need to eliminate the estate tax, and have called on Congress to create a simpler tax code for farmers and ranchers. Ag groups are also urging Congress to reduce income tax rates, reduce capital gains taxes and allow for immediate business expensing.

Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt last week promised a back-to-basics agenda approach for the federal agency. While visiting a Pennsylvania coal mine, Pruitt announced the agenda, saying the new focus “means returning EPA to its core mission: protecting the environment by engaging with state, local,and tribal partners to create sensible regulations that enhance economic growth.” In his speech to Pennsylvania miners, Administrator Pruitt explained that the EPA would be partnering with states and tribes to ensure a “thoughtful approach is used to maximize resources to protect America’s air, land and water.” The agenda reinforces Pruitt’s pledge to refocusing EPA on its intended mission, returning power to the states, and creating an environment where jobs can grow.

The Department of Agriculture wants to move forward with a modernization of pork slaughter. USDA’s Food Safety and Inspection Service last week announced the agency wants to move forward with a system that will focus inspection resources and improve food safety. The effort is supported by the National Pork Producers Council, which says the improvements would increase efficiency and effectiveness of the federal inspection process, and allow for the rapid adoption of new food safety technologies in pork slaughter. NPPC says it also has the potential to increase U.S. hog slaughter capacity. Like the system already implemented in the chicken industry, the pork version, also a result of the years-long Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Points Inspection Models Project, currently has five U.S. pork packing plants participating in pilot programs. Enactment of a modernization rule would make the system available to all packers.

Japan is seeking to revive the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal without the United States. President Donald Trump in January removed the U.S. from the deal that was estimated to be worth more than $4 billion to U.S. agriculture. Now, Japan is seeking to amend the deal to 11 nations, cutting out the U.S., and moving forward. The Nikkei Asian Review reports Japan has confirmed that President Trump would not object to the deal moving forward without the U.S., paving the way for a possible final agreement. Tokyo aims to hold a TPP ministers meeting in Vietnam in late May to consider ways an 11-member pact could be brought into force. Doing so would require those members to settle on a revision to exclude the United States. However, for some countries, that means reopening the deal to renegotiation.

Three Farm Credit organizations received stockholder approval to merge their businesses together into one organization. As of July first, Farm Credit Services, AgStar Financial Services, and Badgerland Financial will become Compeer Financial. The boards of directors of each organization first began looking into the possibility of merging assets back in February of last year. Each recommended moving forward with the idea in August of 2016. The new organization will do business in 144 counties across Minnesota, Wisconsin, and Illinois. They’ll have 47 offices, nearly 50,000 clients, and $18.6 billion in assets. AgStar President and CEO Rod Hebrink has been selected to lead the new Compeer Financial. The merger will help draw on the strengths of each organization, but it also will provide expanded capital for Compeer to invest in new technologies and other resources to support the client base. It also allows the group to diversify its portfolio, which creates additional stability and gives the organization a much better chance to share earnings with their stockholders through a cash patronage program.

The Heritage Foundation’s Center for Free Markets and Regulatory Reform wrote an op-ed piece for the National Review Dot Com on agricultural subsidies. The piece by a senior research fellow refers back to higher than expected costs for the Ag Risk Coverage (ARC) and the Price Loss Coverage (PLC) programs in the 2014 farm bill. The piece says those costs are almost double the original estimates, $32 billion over five years rather than the projected $18 billion first forecast. The Foundation says agribusiness groups are after even more handouts as lawmakers prepare to develop the next Farm Bill. The Heritage Foundation is calling on Congress to keep the interests of the taxpayer in mind when developing the upcoming Farm Bill. They want Congress to get rid of the ARC and PLC programs in the next Farm Bill. In the meantime, they’d like to see caps on those programs, ensuring that they aren’t open-ended programs and give taxpayers at least some protection. They note that a House amendment when the programs were first written would have capped outlays but the amendment was removed by legislators during final Farm Bill negotiations.