The Grain Merchants
Controllers of the World’s Food
Did you know that 90 per cent of the export market for each of wheat, corn, oilseeds, coffee, tea, cotton, tobacco, jute and forest products is controlled by just a handful of companies?
One would assume that such companies are household names, but most people would be hard pressed to name a single one of them. Invisible giants, wielding a staggering amount of political and economic clout, these companies have evolved from mostly humble beginnings over the past two centuries; the majority of them remain privately owned.
How many of the following names do you recognize?
- Cargill Inc. (American multinational, privately owned by the Cargill/Macmillan family)
- Continental Grain (American multinational, privately owned by the Fribourg family)
- Louis Dreyfus (French multinational, privately owned by the Louis-Dreyfus family)
- Andre Garnac (Swiss multinational, privately owned by the Andre and Garnac families)
- Bunge (Brazilian multinational, established in 1818, it was publicly listed in 2001)
- Archer Daniel Midland (American, publicly listed)
- Mitsui (Japanese, publicly listed)
CARGILL
Based in Minnesota, Cargill was founded in 1865 and remains a family owned business. As of 2006 it is the second largest privately owned company in the world, declaring revenues of $75.2 billion and net earnings of $1.5 billion.
- It is responsible for 25% of all US grain exports
- It supplies 22% of the US domestic meat market
- It exports more product from Argentina than any other company
- It is the largest poultry producer in Thailand
- It has 1,100 offices in 63 countries, employing 149,000 people.
CONTIGROUP COMPANIES (formerly Continental Grain)
Founded in Belgium in 1813, the company is one of the largest privately held companies in the US.
- Opened the first foreign owned feed mill in China in 1979 and has been operating in China for 3 decades
- Has offices and facilities in 10 countries employing more than 13,500 people
- Fifth largest vertically integrated poultry processor in the US
- Second largest pork producer in the US
- 50% ownership of the world’s largest cattle feeding operations, raising and marketing more than 1 million beef cattle per year.
These companies are often their own best customers having achieved extraordinary levels of highly sophisticated vertical integration. Not only do they buy or produce the raw materials, they develop them, transport them, mill them, package them, trade them and process them. They each have whole departments specialising in providing their managers and traders with weather, crop, price, currency, market and political data.
Through their multiple forms of concentration, these companies dominate grain, meat, dairy and other food production, and the processing and distribution system of food, all the way to the supermarket. Very little food moves on the face of the earth without these food companies having had a hand in it.
There have long been concerns over this near monopoly of the global trade of food products with many detractors complaining that the focus is on trade and profit rather than fighting hunger and ensuring farmers’ survival. In the U.S. alone, over 38,310 small farms (with less than $100,000 annual income) disappeared between 1995 and 2002, as the prices paid to farmers crashed to record lows. ADM’s profits leapt from $110 million in 1993 to $511 million in 2003, while Cargill’s net earnings from 1998 to 2002 alone jumped from $468 million to $827 million.
Ironically, while large multinational agribusiness cartels are the main beneficiaries of the globalization of agriculture, they are often amongst the main recipients of government agricultural subsidies. Data obtained by farmsubsidy.org reveals farm subsidy payments to Cargill France SAS totalled Euro 5,078 960 for 2004. EEC subsidies have been largely blamed for promoting overproduction, leading to depressed food prices, grain “mountains” and dumping.
In 1999 Cargill bought Continental Grain’s worldwide grain merchandising business which included grain elevators and mills in the US, oilseed crushing capacity in Europe and Australia as well as export and trading facilities in all five continents. Despite anti-competition concerns the sale went ahead allowing Continental to focus on meat production. The purchase made Cargill the largest grain company in the world. The renamed ContiGroup is now one of the world’s largest poultry, pork and beef producers with interests in flour milling, animal feed production and aquaculture.
The grain cartel members are strong supporters of free trade and whilst there are a relatively small number of players in the world grain market, there is a high level of competition between them. These firms derive their profits from maximising volumes handled and not through restricting trade with a view to controlling prices. Despite this, the current cheap-commodity/high-production scenario means that whilst food is becoming ever more expensive, the price at the farm gate often provides minimal margins or net losses for the farmers.
Points to Ponder
- The average European family pays more than $1,000 a year to the continent's farmers and agribusinesses under the Common Agricultural Policy.
- The European Union spends half of its entire budget on subsidies.
- Europe produces sugar at three times the price that more efficient countries such as Malawi and Zambia do.
World grain supplies (coarse grain and wheat) are expected be much tighter in 2006/07, boosting global grain prices. Rising consumption is expected to outstrip production for the second straight year, which would push world grain ending stocks to the lowest levels in more than 25 years.
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