Archer Daniels Midland

Archer Daniels Midland

Company Snapshot:

Archer Daniels Midland Company is a world leader in the processing of oilseeds and cocoa, and produces corn and wheat goods such as sweeteners and durum flour. ADM reported sales of $36.6 billion in 2006 with 25,641 employees. Co-op America 10-30-2007

Basic information Ownership status: Publicly traded Number of employees worldwide: 27,000 Chief executive officer: Patricia A. Woertz Website: http://www.admworld.com Tel: 217-424-5200 Financial information Detailed financial information Stock ticker symbol: ADM Fortune 500 position: 174 Total revenue: $44 billion Fiscal year: 2007 Corporate accountability Corporate accountability:

"The competitor is our friend, the customer is our enemy," ADM's then-CEO Dwayne Andreas explained famously explained to his son Michael (a company executive Vice President) before the company was convicted of price-fixing.

"There isn't one grain of anything in the world that is sold in a free market," Andreas told a Mother Jones reporter in 1995. "Not one! The only place you see a free market is in the speeches of politicians. People who are not from the Midwest do not understand that this is a socialist country."

The criminal prosecution of ADM depended on Mark Whitacre, the former ADM vice president who agreed to become a mole for the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and be wired. As a result of Whitacre's work, the FBI collected hundreds of hours of video and audio tapes documenting executives from around the world fixing the price of lysine, a feed additive.

In October 1996, ADM pled guilty to antitrust crimes and was fined $100 million. Senior vice presidents Michael Andreas, the son of then-Chairman Dwayne Andreas, and Terrence Wilson were convicted of antitrust crimes in 1999 after a trial in federal court in Chicago. They were sentenced to three years in prison each.

Two books were written about this infamous chapter in the company's history -- former NYTimes reporter Kurt Eichenwald's The Informant, and the lesser-known Rats in the Grain by James B. Lieber. Labor:

The International Labor Rights Fund (ILRF) has sued Nestlé, Archer Daniels Midland, and Cargill in Federal District Court in Los Angeles for involvement in the trafficking, torture, and forced labor of children who cultivate and harvest cocoa beans that the companies import from Africa. They filed suit on behalf of a class of Malian children who were trafficked from Mali into the Ivory Coast and forced to work twelve to fourteen hours a day with no pay, little food and sleep, and frequent beatings. The three children acting as class representative plaintiffs are proceeding anonymously as John Does because of feared retaliation by the farm owners for whom they worked. nternational Labor Rights Fund, 07/13/2005

Environment and product safety:

Archer Daniels Midland was rated as the 10th worst polluter on the Political Economy Research Institute's Toxic 100 index. The index is based on 2002 EPA Toxics Release Inventory data. PERI's Toxic 100 index ranks the nation's largest companies based on the quantity of their emissions, relative toxicity of chemicals emitted, and proximity to population centers, among other criteria. [Political Economy Research Institute (PERI), 05/11/2006]

The Amazon rainforest is home to nearly 10 percent of the world's mammals, 15 percent of the world's known land-based plant species, and about 220,000 people from over 180 different indigenous nations. However, this biodiverse region is being threatened by deforestation caused by soy production. An estimated 1.2 million hectares of what was once rainforest have been destroyed, mostly illegally, to grow soybeans for animal feed. US-based agricultural commodity giants Cargill, Archer Daniels Midland, and Bunge are responsible for an estimated 60 percent of the total financing of soy production in Brazil, which is home to a majority of the Amazon rainforest. These companies also facilitate in forest destruction by providing everything from seeds to agrochemicals, transportation and storage infrastructure needed to draw farmers into the Amazon rainforest. Additionally, the use of slave labor to clear the forests has been well documented. Between 2003 and 2004, the Brazilian government reported nearly 8,700 slaves in the Mato Grosso and Para states. Greenpeace, 04/06/2006

Boston-based Ceres, a national nework of investors, environmental organizations and other public interest groups working to address sustainablity challenges such as global climate change, published a report in 2006 titled "Corporate Governance and Climate Change: Making the Connection." The report details a comprehensive measurement of how 100 leading global companies are responding to global warming. Through an evaluation of board oversight, management performance, public disclosure, emissions accounting, and strategic performance, to address climate change, the companies were evaluated on a scale of 0 to 100. ADM scored a total of 12 points. CERES, 03/01/2006

Archer Daniels Midland and Cargill were the primary targets of the Organic Consumers Association’s Campaign Against GE Corn. As the leading producers of genetically engineered corn, these companies are seen as responsible for widespread “genetic pollution” of organic corn species across North and Central America. The OCA was calling on consumers to take action against ADM and appeal to the FDA regarding the proliferation and safety of genetically engineered corn. Organic Consumers Association, 01/01/2006 Political influence:

Archer Daniels Midland named a new president CEO in February of 2007. Patricia Woertz replaces G. Allen Andreas who retired. Woertz is the first president and CEO since 1970 who is not a member of the Andreas family. Associated Press State & Local Wire, 02/01/2007

Since the 2000 election cycle, ADM has given more than $3 million in political contributions: $1.2 million to Democrats and $1.85 million to Republicans. These donations may have helped sustain a multitude of government subsidies to ADM, including ethanol tax credits, tariffs against foreign ethanol competitors, and federally mandated ethanol additive standards. CorpWatch, 06/01/2006

In 2005, CEO G. Allen Andreas of Archer Daniels Midland Company received $13.66 million in compensation. From previous years' stock option grants, the ADM executive cashed out $203,958 in stock option exercises. Andreas has another $20.25 million in unexercised stock options from previous years. [www.aflcio.org/corporatewatch/paywatch/ceou/database.cfm?tkr=ADM&pg=1 AFL-CIO, 04/05/2006]

According to Grist, an online environmental magazine, ADM financed a lobbying effort in 1982 that led to the “blatantly protectionist sugar quota system” that has been in effect since Reagan was president. ADM’s two main products from its corn processing division are high-fructose corn syrup, which is the dominant sweetener in the U.S. and which many scientists believe leads to obesity more than white sugar; and ethanol, a corn-based fuel. It is widely held that ethanol would have no market share without government intervention. The 2005 Energy Policy Act renewed tax incentives for ethanol production and required that by 2012 the gasoline supply contain 7.5 billion gallons of ethanol, and further mandated that all government-owned vehicles use ethanol exclusively. These are huge windfalls for ethanol producers. [Daily Grist, 02/02/2006 Source URL: gristmill.grist.org/story/2006/2/2/52324/18981

Archer Daniels Midland scored 29 out of 100 on the Human Rights Campaign's Corporate Equality Index. The Corporate Equality Index is a tool to measure how equitably companies are treating their gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender employees, consumers and investors. Human Rights Campaign, 09/20/2005

South Africa-based ActionAid International, a large global anti-poverty group, is calling for stricter regulation of transnational corporations that now dominate the global food market. A January 2005 report called "Power Hungry" alleges that in that past several years, corporate cartels, particularly in the food and agricultural sectors, have reappeared and are causing "massive market distortions." In 2004, ADM paid a $400 million fine to settle an antitrust suit that alleged that the company “conspired to fix the price of corn fructose”. In 1996 ADM was ordered by the US Justice Deapartment to pay $100 million criminal fine, the largest antitrust fine ever up until then, for its role in conspiracies to fix lysine and citric acid market prices around the world. [http:www.actionaid.org.uk/wps/content/documents/power_hungry.pdf ActionAid UK, 01/01/2005]''

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