Archer Daniels Midland

Last edited by Tonya Hennessey on June 2, 2010 - 4:04pm

Profile editor:

Charlie Cray

Company Snapshot:

Decatur, Illinois-based Archer Daniels Midland (ADM) is one of the world's largest agricultural conglomerates. Its business is primarily structured around the processing and trading of oilseeds (e.g. soy, palm), corn, wheat and cocoa. ADM is also a leading manufacturer of protein meal, corn sweeteners, flour, ethanol and vegetable oil. The company has an extensive grain elevator and transportation network, which it uses to collect, store, clean, process and transport agricultural commodities.

In 1996 ADM pled guilty and paid a record $100 million fine for price-fixing in the lysine market -- a famous case that was the basis for the 2009 movie "The Informant". The massive wave of adverse publicity and related lawsuits that resulted from the charges ultimately ended the reign of CEO and Chairman Dwayne Andreas (who was never charged with a crime) and his son Michael (who went to jail).

CorpWatch and Crocodyl.org have created a case study of the ADM price-fixing scandal depicted in the movie, called "The Story Behind The Informant!".

Over a decade later, ADM remains one of the largest manufacturers of sweeteners and other food processing ingredients, as well as a leading producer of ethanol and other biofuels. Although the Andreas family and its allies no longer control the company, ADM's board is notably lacking any independent directors.

Ownership status:

Publicly traded

Number of employees worldwide:

28,200 (6/30/09)

Chief executive officer:

Patricia A. Woertz

Website:

Archer Daniels Midland

Global Fortune 500 rank:

Tel:

+1-217-424-5400

Fax:

+1-217-424-5447

Net Income:

$U.S. 1.7 Billion (2009)

Total revenue:

$ U.S. 62.97 Billion (2009)

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Corporate accountability

Accountability overview:

In 1996, ADM was rocked by the largest price-fixing scandal in history. The scheme was exposed by company Vice President and whistleblower Mark Whitacre, who agreed to wear a wire in meetings with corporate executives from ADM and other companies. Whitacre's story was later depicted in a book ("The Informant") by New York Times reporter, Kurt Eichenwald, which was adapted as a movie in 2009. Whitacre and two other executives eventually went to jail, and the company paid a record $100 million penalty. The case eventually led to the demise of Dwayne Andreas, the powerful ADM CEO who had many friends in Washington due to enduring campaign contributions and sponsorship of influential television programs.

In recent years, the company's investments in ethanol, cocoa (west Africa), soybeans (Brazil) and palm oil (Indonesia) have led to a variety of concerns about the company's human rights policies and environmental impacts.

Tax issues:

Overall Corporate Taxes

Citizens for Tax Justice reported that ADM paid 28.8% in taxes between 1996 and 1998, five percent higher than the industry average and 7 percent higher than the average of 250 large corporations studied, although lower than the statutory rate for corporations, which is 35%. Although ADM receives billions of dollars in government support and tax breaks through federal commodity policies, Dwayne Andreas, the company's former CEO who lobbied top politicians for such favors, was one of the few corporate leaders to advocate for an increase in the corporate income tax rate. (International Directory of Company Histories).

Subsidies for Ethanol

Although the push to jumpstart ethanol production began in the late 1970s, in response to rising oil prices, ADM has invested heavily in ethanol production in recent years.

According to a report by the Cato Institute, former CEO Dwayne Andreas (a major donor to both Democratic and Republican parties) approached President Carter in 1978 with a proposal to accelerate the country’s energy independence by creating a large tax break for ethanol production. (James Bovard, “Archer Daniels Midland: A Case Study in Corporate Welfare”, Cato Institute, September 26, 1995).

With Carter’s support, the Energy Tax Act of 1978 exempted gasohol (gasoline blended with 10 percent ethanol) from the 4 cents per gallon federal excise tax. In addition, Andreas lobbied Carter for government-backed loans for ethanol plants and a stiff tariff against Brazilian ethanol (derived from sugar -- corn’s biggest ethanol competitor). Carter did both – announcing $340 million in loans for new ethanol plants. (Tom Philpott, “How cash and corporate pressure pushed ethanol to the fore,” Grist, December 6, 2006)

The “gasohol” tax exemption and sugar quotas have remained in place for decades. Under George W. Bush, federal policies continued to favor ADM and ethanol, including stiff tariffs against foreign ethanol, a quota on sugar imports, the ethanol tax exemption, and heavily subsidized corn production. The Energy Policy Act of 2005 required the U.S. renewable fuel content to double by 2015.

Although corn doesn’t have an exclusive hold on the renewable fuels market, years of federal support have given it a distinct advantage. As International Institute for Sustainable Development researcher Doug Koplow told Grist, “virtually every production input and production stage of ethanol and biodiesel is subsidized somewhere in the country; in many locations, producers can tap into multiple subsidies at once.”

In 2007, Koplow estimated that total annual government support for ethanol added up to somewhere between $5.8 and $7.0 billion (2006 figures), an amount he estimates will rise to somewhere between $11.6 and $14.4 billion by 2016. (Doug Koplow, “At What Cost? Government Support for Ethanol and Biodiesel in the United States - 2007 Update”, IISD, 2007, pp 66-67) With ADM controlling at least a third of the ethanol market, using Koplow's numbers Philpott estimates that government subsidies to ADM amount to about $2 billion per year.

Subsidies for ethanol have been criticized by food retailers, including the Grocery Manufacturers Association, which asserts that ethanol subsidies and related policies (e.g. import restrictions) have contributed to a rise in food prices. (Anna Palmer, “Beating Up on Ethanol,” Roll Call, May 14, 2008)

With corn and other commodities subject to volatile price swings, along with thin operating margins, ethanol is a speculative and risky business. The company's commitment to ethanol is closely linked to a range of political initiatives – including large political contributions to both parties, the placement of allies in key government positions, the creation and support of aggressive trade associations including the Farm Bureau, commodity groups (such as the Corn Refiners Association) and related foundations and connections to important media sectors along with heavy advertising campaigns to maintain the necessary and ongoing political support required to gain support for ethanol subsidies and other programs that benefit the company -- see section on political influence, below. (Nicholas Hollis, “Ethanol Subsidies for ADM & Other Corporate Kleptomaniacs Will Not Solve Energy Crisis,” Agribusiness Examiner # 373, 9/30/04)

Labor:

In January 2000, ADM agreed to pay $650,000 in penalties for safety and health violations at its rail car repair facility in Decatur, Illinois, and to create a new position of vice president of safety and health. ("Company Pays OSHA Fine and Creates New Safety and Health Position", EHSToday, January 21, 2000). Four workers died and were hospitalized between 1993 and 1998. The most serious violations involved 20 willful violations (i.e. "committed with an intentional disregard of or plain indifference to") a requirement to use retrieval lifelines for workers entering confined spaces. Other issues included the lack of monitoring, a failure to inform emergency service providers of workplace hazards, inadequate storage of dangerous materials and lack of respiratory protection. ADM had previously been fined $690,500 by OSHA in 1996 over confined space procedures, and had agreed to make improvements.

According to OSHA data, ADM committed at least 29 serious violations after that (i.e. between 2001 and 2009). On 1/29/09, Robert Fitch, a worker at ADM Milling Co.'s Lincoln, NE plant, died after falling from a manlift.

Decatur Wars

ADM owned over 7 percent of Staley, a neighboring plant in Decatur, at a time when Staley was embroiled in a bitter labor dispute -- during the mid-1990s. (Controlling ownership of Staley was held by UK-based Tate & Lyle PLC). In the run up to Staley's labor dispute, the two companies -- supposedly competitors -- built a 3.5 mile pipeline between their plants as a way to maintain production during a strike. (Crisis in Decatur, UPIU)

Environment and product safety:

On January 12, 2001, ADM agreed to pay a $1.46 million fine for violating federal and Illinois clean-air rules at a corn feed plant and to spend $1.6 million to reduce air pollution at the plant. (ADM 10-K, 9/01) On July 31, 2000, federal environmental authorities in Brazil ("IBAMA") issued an administrative notice to ADM for discharging industrial wastewater from its Rondonopolis facility. The penalty was reduced from $5.4 million to $400,000 after the company appealed the fine. (ADM 10-K, filed 9/00)

On April 9, 2003, the Department of Justice and EPA announced a Clean Air Act settlement with ADM covering 52 plants in 16 states. The settlement, which required ADM to make an estimated $340 million in improvements, was expected to reduce the company's air pollution by 63,000 tons/yr.

Nevertheless, as of 2008, ADM still ranked #2 on the Political Economy Research Institute of UMass' Toxic 100, a ranking of the top 100 industrial polluters in America, which uses US EPA’s Toxics Release Inventory (TRI), i.e. industry self-reported data for releases of toxic chemicals at facilities across the United States. (For the full report, go here)

Apart from the air pollution at ADM's processing facilities, the hidden environmental costs of corn-based ethanol include "the huge, monstrous costs of cleaning up polluted water in the Mississippi River drainage basin and also trying to remedy the negative effects of poisoning the Gulf of Mexico," says Tad Patzek of the University of California's Civil and Environmental Engineering department, author of a life-cycle analysis of the industrial corn-ethanol cycle, which debunks many of the environmental benefits claimed by ethanol advocates.

As Patzek and others describe the situation, modern corn hybrids require more nitrogen fertilizer, herbicides (e.g. Atrazine), and insecticides than any other crop, while causing top soil erosion. Pesticide and fertilizer runoff from the vast expanses of corn in the U.S. prairies bleed into groundwater and rivers that flow as far as the Gulf of Mexico. The nitrogen runoff flowing into the Mississippi River has fostered a vast bloom of dead algae in the Gulf that starves fish and other aquatic life of oxygen, causing what environmental scientists have described as an ecological time bomb.

Although banned by the European Union, Atrazine (made by Syngenta is the most heavily used herbicide in the United States, with an estimated 80 million pounds spread into the U.S. environment every year. It is primarily applied to corn fields and the EPA rates it as the second most common pesticide in drinking wells. The EPA has set maximum safe levels of atrazine in drinking water at 3 parts per billion, but scientists with the U.S. Geological Survey have found up to 224 parts per billion in Midwestern streams and 2,300 parts per billion in Corn Belt irrigation reservoirs. (Sasha Lilley, "Green Fuel's Dirty Secret," CorpWatch, June 1, 2006). Moreover, although initial concerns about atrazine included cancer (Atrazine clearly causes cancer in laboratory rats), more recent evidence indicates it "scrambles the sex hormones of frogs, turning males into hermaphrodites" at just 1/30th the levels determined by EPA to be safe for drinking water.

Impacts of Soybean Farming

In 2006 Greenpeace reported that soybean farming financed by huge U.S. agribusiness corporations like ADM was one of the primary forces driving deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon. ADM, Cargill and Bunge together control nearly 80 percent of the EU's soybean processing, and are responsible for 60 percent of the financial investments in soybean production in Brazil, Greenpeace reported in "Eating up the Amazon."

"A drive through the countryside reveals how the expansion of agribusiness is turning millions of hectares of formerly natural ecosystems, including the Cerrado (grasslands) and the Amazon, into one major monoculture," the Oakland Institute reported two years later. (Camila Moreno and Anuradha Mittal, "Food & Energy Sovereignty Now: Brazilian Grassroots Position on Agroenergy," 2008).

In 2006 ADM pledged to stop purchasing soy grown in newly deforested regions of the Amazon.

Palm Oil

ADM claims to be "working to create a sustainable supply chain for palm oil" by participating in the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil, which was set up with the help of NGOs. Friends of the Earth calls "sustainable palm oil" a fraud. WWF, which participated in the creation of the roundtable, stated in May 2009 that it was not having enough of an impact: "Rapid increases in the production of palm oil, which is found in everything from cosmetics to ice cream to chocolate bars, has caused extensive land clearing in places like Borneo and Sumatra, resulting in loss of habitat for endangered species like tigers and orangutans and contributing to climate change."

Years before, Friends of the Earth reported that palm oil is driving rainforest destruction in Indonesia. (FOE UK, "Greasy palms - palm oil, the environment and big business," 2004) and threatening Orangutan habitats. Greenpeace, which called the roundtable greenwash, also reported that palm oil demand was driving the burning of peatlands in Borneo and other parts of Indonesia, thereby increasing carbon emissions and exacerbating the threat of climate change. The Pesticide Action Network also reported that ADM and other companies with an interest in oil palm plantations were responsible for deforestation in Malaysia. (ADM owns a 16% interest in Wilmar International (Singapore), the largest global processor and merchandiser of palm and lauric oils. )

In 2005, the Center for Science in the Public Interest described "serious health concerns associated with the use of palm oil" in a letter to the US Dept. of Health and Human Services.

The Palm Oil Truth Foundation -- which regularly attacks environmentalists and others who have exposed the industry's impacts and health issues -- has been accused of being a front for the industry and/or its allies.

Animal Feed Controversy

The safety of a cottonseed-based animal feed sold by ADM that contained gossypol, a naturally occurring poisonous pigment, was raised in the mid-1990s, but was obscured by publicity surrounding the price-fixing cases. A lawsuit (Moberly v. Archer Daniels Midland) was filed by a rancher who owned cows that died after eating the feed. (See Leiber, Rats in the Grain, pages 34-35) The company paid $105,000 to settle the case. A report by the FDA years later that companies involved in manufacturing animal feed are not complying with regulations meant to prevent the emergence of mad cow disease reminded industry watchdogs of the testimony of Mark Whitacre, who "advised that ADM has illegally disposed of genetic organisms by adding the organisms to corn glutten feed." (A V Krebs, Agribusiness Examiner, 1/19/01)

In 2000, consumer and environmental groups found genetically modified "Starlink" corn in a variety of taco shells, including some that were traced to an ADM subsidiary, Gruma.

Barge Pollution

The company reported in its 2009 10-K report that US EPA and the Missouri DNR initiated a criminal investigation of wastewater discharges at an ADM barge facility in Missouri.

In 2005, ADM agreed to settle alleged air pollution (NESHAP) violations at its Vitamin E plant near Decatur for $375,000 and a pledge to perform a "supplemental environmental project" costing $1 million.

Human rights:

Cocoa and Child Labor

In 1997, ADM got into the chocolate business by buying W.R. Grace's cocoa division, rapidly becoming the largest processor of cocoa beans in the world, grinding three million pounds a day. ADM and other processors -- Cargill, Barry Callebaut AG (Zurich) and Nestle -- were all demanding low prices for the beans, which in turn led growers in African countries such as Cote d'Ivoire to use children as slave labor.

In 2001, a Knight-Ridder investigative series, "A Taste of Slavery", described how members of the Chocolate Manufacturers Association condemned the human traffic without doing much to stop it. Seventy percent of the world’s child labor is concentrated in the agricultural sector, where vulnerable children toil in blazing heat, exposed to dangerous farm machinery and deadly pesticides. Working children are also deprived of an adequate education.

On September 19, 2001 ADM, the Chocolate Manufacturers Association, 7 other companies and the World Cocoa Foundation together signed a protocol that proponents suggested was designed to identify and eliminate the worst forms of child labor. The agreement called for independent monitoring and an aggressive timetable for implementation. Industry, government and some NGO groups formed a Broad Consultative Group to implement the protocol. An International Institute for Tropical Agriculture survey conducted for the group found that tens of thousands of children were at risk of trafficking and forced labor. In July 2002, industry groups and local labor unions established an International Cocoa Initiative (CIP) to develop a means of monitoring and reporting on implementation of the protocol. The International Labor Rights Fund (ILRF) criticized the protocol for not establishing international standards and for being voluntary and not mandatory.

During this period, Mark Cheviron, ADM's vice president and director of Corporate Security, was appointed by Secretary of State Colin Powell to the State Department's Overseas Security Advisory Council. James Lieber reported in Rats in the Grain (page 339) that during the Lysine price-fixing case, the government revealed that "Cheviron had been involved in using prostitutes as spies, stealing biotechnology and hindering the FBI's extortion probe."

In July 2005, ILRF sued ADM, Nestle and Cargill in a Los Angeles federal court, in order to force them to step up efforts to end child labor. The plaintiffs claimed the companies were involved in trafficking, torture and forced labor of Mali children who were enslaved to work on Ivory Coast farms. The three main plaintiffs were ages 12 to 14 when they were taken from their homes, but the lawsuit covers "thousands" of children who were allegedly enslaved from 1996 until 2005 to work in the Ivory Coast region. The claims were brought under the Alien Tort Claims Act.

Shareholder activists have filed resolutions with Hershey and other companies that buy from ADM.

Three years later (4/3/08), a campaign was launched in response to Cargill and ADM's aggressive efforts to have a provision dropped from the 2008 Farm Bill which would establish a certification program related to imports made using forced labor and child labor. Section 3104 of the Farm Bill, called Voluntary Certification of Child Labor Status of Agricultural Imports, would provide a method which producers of agricultural products could use to certify that their products are free of child labor and forced labor. The Department of Labor, under the Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act of 2005, is compiling a list of imported goods believed to be produced using forced labor or child labor in violation of international standards.

“Despite having signed the Pact Against Slave Labor, these companies have yet to prove that slave labor is not used in their supply chain, which is appalling in this day and age," said Leila Salazar-Lopez, director of Rainforest Action Network’s Agribusiness Campaign. "ADM and Cargill’s lobbying efforts are in violation of their own corporate codes of conduct and are proof that these companies have no intention of being transparent about their labor practices.”

The Farm Bill was passed in May of 2008 with the language in Section 3014 altered in order to form a consultative group tasked with developing recommendations for guidelines intended to ensure goods imported into the U.S. have not been produced, processed or distributed with child or forced labor.

On June 30, 2008, ILRF reported on a recent field investigation into child labor practices in the cocoa industry. The group concluded that the industry continues to drag its feet by failing to "provide consumers with a reasonable assurance that the chocolate they buy was made without exploited and trafficked child labor. Major chocolate companies signed what is referred to as the Harkin-Engel Protocol in 2001, promising to eliminate the worst forms of child labor from their supply chains, after media stories emerged depicting the widespread use of forced child labor and trafficking on West African cocoa farms. After failing to meet their July 1, 2005 commitments, the Protocol was weakened and extended to July 1, 2008. Once again, the industry has missed the deadline."

On October 12, 2007, ILRF and other groups announced that Cargill had committed to a certification standard that would eliminate child labor, among other things. ADM has yet to make such a commitment, even though, like Cargill, it is associated with the International Cocoa Initiative.

Anti-competitive and consumer protection:

Lysine and Other Price Fixing Scandals

"The competitor is our friend, and the customer is our enemy." -- Dwayne Andreas

Early Cases:

In 1965, ADM and 11 other firms paid fines for price-fixing in the bakery flour market.
In 1976, ADM pleaded no contest when charged with false grading and short-weighting exported grains.
In 1978, ADM and two other companies were convicted of conspiring to fix prices in the Food for Peace program.
In 1991, a federal judge dismissed charges initiated by the government nearly a decade before (1982), in which ADM was accused of monopolizing the High Fructose Corn Syrup market.
In 1994, ADM paid $80,000 to the state of Florida and $1.4 million more to soft drink bottlers and others in order to get dropped from a case alleging price-fixing and market allocation in the liquid carbon dioxide business.
In 2001, ADM and five other producers of sodium gluconate, an organic solvent, were fined $52 million in Europe for running a price-fixing cartel from 1987 to 1995.

(References: Ronald Henkoff, "Oh, How the Money Grows at ADM," Fortune, 10/8/90; Jeff Gerth, "Andreas, A Man in the Spotlight," New York Times, 7/26/78; Ronald Yates, "ADM Rivals Cry Foul in Carbon-Dioxide," Chicago Tribune, 9/9/95; Lieber, Rats in the Grain, page 343).

On October 15, 1996, the U.S. Department of Justice announced that ADM had agreed to plead guilty to price-fixing in the international lysine (an amino acid used as an animal feed additive) and citric acid (a food additive) markets, and would pay a record US $100 million fine. The case was one of the biggest scandals ever to rock the corporate world, and is described in two books published in 2000 -- The Informant by Kurt Eichenwald (adapted in 2009 into a movie with Matt Damon depicting whistleblower Mark Whitacre), and Rats in the Grain by James B. Lieber.

The $100m fine was part of a settlement with the US Justice Department in which the company also agreed to cooperate with further federal investigations involving other markets and other companies. In return, ADM received: a) Immunity from prosecution for chairman and CEO Dwanye Andreas and his right-hand man, James Randall; b) An agreement that no criminal charges against the company for price-fixing in the High Fructose Corn Syrup market (ADM’s most important product -- worth $3bn/hr compared to $650m for lysine); and, c) An agreement to drop an ongoing investigation into allegations that ADM stole trade secrets from its competitors.

Three former top ADM executives -- Michael ("Mick") D. Andreas, Terrance S. Wilson, and Mark E. Whitacre -- were also indicted by a federal grand jury in December 1996, found guilty by a jury in 1998 and, after an appeal, forced to serve time in jail. In 2000 the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals described Mick Andreas as "the ultimate leader of the price-fixing cabal."

"The facts involved in this case reflect an inexplicable lack of business ethics and an atmosphere of lawlessness that infected the very heart of one of America's leading corporate citizens," the panel of judges wrote. "Top executives at ADM and its Asian co-conspirators throughout the early 1990s spied on each other, fabricated aliases and front organizations to hide their activities, hired prostitutes to gather information from competitors, and obstructed justice." The judges rejected a lower court ruling that Andreas and Wilson had not led the lysine conspiracy, and added an additional year to their sentence.(Lieber, Rats in the Grain, page 337).

ADM reported to the SEC that it was being charged and/or investigated for antitrust or related violations in five markets -- lysine, citic acid, sodium gluconate, monosodium glutamate and high fructose corn syrup (HFCS).

In addition to the criminal investigations and charges, a variety of civil lawsuits (both class and non-class) as well as shareholder derivative lawsuits were filed. ADM settled a civil law suit related to lysine price fixing for $25 million, and also settled citric acid price fixing lawsuits for $65 million. (Eichenwald, "Archer Settles Price Fixing Suits for $65 Million," New York Times, 9/28/96). (The numerous criminal and civil suits filed against ADM, its officers and other companies are described in Appendix 4 of James Lieber's book, Rats in the Grain, as well as a paper by Prof. John M. Connor of Purdue University's Dept. of Agricultural Economics ("Archer Daniels Midland: Price Fixer to the World").

At the time, the $100 million fine was the largest in history, and the attention the case received paved the way for even greater penalties. Since 1996, the Department of Justice has fined over a dozen other companies more than $100 million for antitrust violations.

In 2004 ADM paid $ 400 million to settle an antitrust lawsuit that claimed the company conspired to fix the price of high fructose corn-syrup. More here.

Years later (2002), a review by the Department of Justice of ADM's acquisition of Minnesota Corn Processors, LLC led DoJ to require ADM to dissolve a joint venture with a competing corn wet miller before proceeding. DoJ said the acquisition, as originally proposed, "would have substantially lessened competition."

Political influence (national and international):

In 1995, Mother Jones magazine reported that "no other U.S. company is so reliant on politicians and governments to butter its bread," citing 3 core areas where ADM is supported by US government programs:

1) Corn subsidies - these make a relatively small contribution to ADM's finances, but with its heavy focus on processing, ADM benefits from the stability they provide in a volatile market;

2) The sugar program - by limiting US sugar production (and sustaining import quotas or high tariffs), the government keeps sweetener prices high, and so keeps customers like Coca-Cola favoring ADM's corn sweeteners over cane sugar (which they used to use);

3) Ethanol subsidies - this is by far the most significant, a tax credit to producers of ethanol used as car fuel, amounting to $3.5 bn over 5 years (about half of which goes to ADM -- see discussion above and below).

(Reports on the political and media influence of ADM include: Tim Weiner, "Dwayne's World: Influence of Archer-Daniels is Wide as Well as Deep," NYTimes 1/16/96; Scott Kilman, Bruce Ingersoll, and Jill Abramson, "Risk Averse: How Dwayne Andreas Rules Archer-Daniels by Hedging His Bets, CEO Works With Rivals, Gives to Both Parties and Invests in the Media," Wall Street Journal, 10/27/95)

According to Mother Jones, ADM's lobbyists and the campaign contributions the company has doled out have helped guarantee the maintenance of these policies for decades.

Tom Philpott reported in December of 2006 that "CEO Andreas gained legendary status as a double-dealer during the Watergate investigations, when the congressional hearings revealed that he had cut the $25,000 check used by Richard Nixon's "plumbers" to finance the famous hotel break-in. From the same hearings it emerged that in 1968, Andreas had illegally donated $100,000 to Minnesota Sen. Hubert Humphrey -- Nixon's Democratic opponent in the 1968 election, and a longtime Andreas favorite."

Andreas had connections to other top politicians as well, including Bob Dole (see Jeffrey H. Birnbaum and Viveca Novak," The Corporate Dole," Time 9/23/96), Soviet leaders Brezhnev and Gorbachev, as well as top law firms and lawyers, including Robert Strauss (Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld) and Edward Bennett Williams.

During the 1992 election campaign then-ADM CEO Dwayne Andreas, along with his associates, contributed $1.4m to party organizations and $345,000 to individual candidates; in 1994 they gave $657,000 to parties and $224,000 to individuals. In 1994, at the same time as President Clinton pushed through legislation requiring 30% of petrol sold in America's most polluted cities to contain ethanol products, he was given a $100,000 donation.

ADM's political influence was again the focus of an article in Mother Jones in 1998. AARC (Alternative Agricultural Research and Commercialization) Corp -- a venture capital firm wholly owned by the US Department of Agriculture, was working to boost the development of "environmentally friendly" non-food products from farm and forest materials. AARC Corp.'s chairman was Martin Andreas, Dwayne Andreas' nephew, who reportedly steered $2.4 million in AARC's research money to ADM projects or business interest.

Andreas and ADM earned hefty returns for their political investments. The grain titan is widely credited with convincing President Nixon to initiate and provide financing for an historic $700 million sale of U.S. grain to the Soviet Union in 1972 -- a deal for which Archer Daniels Midland played the profitable role of middleman. The sale had a dramatic and lasting effect on U.S. agriculture. The resulting spike in demand, exacerbated by a drought the following year -- sent grain prices surging. High grain prices rippled through the U.S. food system, helping (along with the 1973 OPEC oil embargo) to spark the "stagflation" that gripped the U.S. economy into the next decade.

Under Andreas, a huge investment was also made in underwriting TV broadcasts on four major networks: ABC, CBS, NBC and PBS. It was this massive amount of spending that made the company's slogan -- "Supermarket to the World" -- so recognizable. (In the wake of the price-fixing scandal, when critics derided the company for its "super markup to the world," it changed the slogan to "The Nature of What's to Come" -- ironically, in the midst of growing concerns about genetically modified food and feed.)

According to the Center for Responsive Politics (which maintains corporate political spending data), ADM's political spending dropped significantly after the 2002 election cycle. Nevertheless, the company is ranked 90th among the all-time highest list ("heavy hitters") of top donors between 1989-2010 (as of 1/11/10), giving a total of $8.3 million, with just over half (56%) going to Republicans (versus 43% to Democrats). The company's influence in the White House and on the Hill didn't seem to wane much after 2002, despite the drop in campaign donations.

Soon after taking office in 2001 (ADM dropped $100,000 on the Bush/Cheney Inauguration), President George W. Bush displayed his fealty by tapping Chuck Conner -- then-president of an ADM front group called the Corn Refiners Association -- as his "special assistant to the president for agriculture, trade, and food assistance." In 2005, Conner became deputy secretary of agriculture.

Sasha Lilley, reported in June 2006 for CorpWatch that "Politicians from the Midwestern Corn Belt are some of the company's staunchest allies. Senators Richard Durbin, Charles Grassley, and Tom Harkin, and Representative Dick Gephardt have consistently supported lavish federal tax subsidies to ethanol producers, for which ADM is the prime beneficiary. All are recipients of political action committee donations from the agribusiness behemoth. The Wall Street Journal has referred to the former South Dakota senator and Senate minority leader as 'Archer Daschle Midland,' because of his unswerving support for the interests of the company."

Astonishingly, ADM never registered an in-house lobbyist until 2006, when the Secretary of the Senate assured watchdogs at Public Citizen that after reviewing its plans ADM "expects that it will have a person on staff who will meet the statutory test [to register as a lobbyist], and thus, will register in the future." (Anna Palmer, "ADM's Invisible Touch," Legal Times, April 2006)

ADM reported to the Senate Office of Public Records (database searched on 1/8/10) that it spent $2 million on lobbying by staff lobbyists between 7/1/08 and 6/30/09, including $1,020,000 in Q3 2008 alone. (ADM's in-house lobby team includes Shannon Herzfeld, Vice President of Government Relations, David Woodruff, Beth Holzman and Anthony Reed.) In addition, the company reported paying Akin, Gump and Rick Carne Consulting, LLC to lobby on its behalf. (Back in 1996, it was Akin Gump that had brokered a side-deal to the $100 million price fixing settlement with the office of then Secretary of Agriculture Dan Glickman to prevent the corporation from being debarred from over $80 million in annual federal funding. Twenty years before, the company had been debarred for manipulating grain shipments for the Food for Peace market. After leaving government service, Glickman and his former chief of staff both joined Akin Gump. See Lieber, Rats in the Grain, pages 317, 342).

Ethanol and ADM

Ethanol is an alcohol made from plant material – usually corn or sugar cane – which is processed into sugar, then fermented. The vast majority of ethanol is used as a biofuel – a substitute for gasoline. Although many early automobiles – including the Model T Ford – were fueled on ethanol, the availability of cheap oil kept ethanol use from increasing in the U.S. for decades.

Although the majority of ADM’s profits have traditionally come from crushing products like corn for the use in food products, Ethanol production has been central to ADM’s growth and profitability in recent years, making up to 40 percent of its net income. (“Ethanol Fuels ADM’s Profits,” Business Week, 2/1/07; Alexei Barrionuevo, “A Bet on Ethanol, With a Convert at the Helm,” New York Times, 10/8/06.)

In the past five years the company has invested $6.7 billion on the construction of new plants and the maintenance/expansion of existing plants, along with certain acquisitions. Much of the expansion is directed at ramping up its ethanol production capacity. E.g. ADM is building two dry corn milling plants to increase its annual ethanol capacity by 550 million gallons to 1.7 billion gallons. (Although the company's Corn Processing division is much smaller than its oilseeds and Ag Services divisions, investment in corn processing in 2009 was nearly four times larger than either of the other divisions). (ADM 10-K, Note 15: Segment and Geographic Information; "Gross additions to property, plant and equipment")

Concerns about energy supplies, combined with aggressive lobbying by ADM and other companies, have led to policies designed to jumpstart ethanol production, which has continued to accelerate in recent years, increasing by 15 percent a year between 2000 and 2006. With consumer demand for alternative fuel vehicles increasing, auto manufacturers are working to produce more flex fuel vehicles (FFVs), which are capable of operating on a blend containing gasoline and as much as 85% ethanol ( E-85) About 7 million FFVs (designed to run on ethanol blends higher than the 10% that normal cars can handle) are already in use in the U.S.

Half of the world’s 13.1 billion gallons of ethanol were produced from corn in the U.S. in 2007 according to the Renewable Fuels Association. ADM, the largest producer of ethanol in the U.S., controls somewhere between 25% and 70 percent of the market (Ronald Henkoff, "Oh, How the money Grows at ADM," Fortune, 10/8/90.)

Critics say the growth in ethanol use in recent years relies heavily on political policies that distort commodity markets, creating additional pressures on food prices and overall food security, and introducing false solutions to major environmental challenges such as global warming. In 1997, the General Accounting Office ("GAO-GGD-97-41 Tax Policy") concluded that gasohol (a common ethanol blend) had minimal environmental benefits, reduced petroleum imports by only 1 percent, and that the ethanol industry would collapse without subsidies. In addition, it raised the cost of feed by 20 to 40 cents per bushel, thereby raising the cost of meat, poultry and pork, while the ethanol tax exemption siphoned about $7 billion out of the Federal Highway Trust fund (used for bridge and road maintenance).

The UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) reported in 2008 that biofuels have created a new and significant source of demand for some agricultural commodities, and have “been one of the leading factors behind the increase in their prices in world markets which, in turn, has led to higher food prices.”

In the U.S., ethanol is diverting about 20% of the nation’s corn crop, pushing corn prices up to record high levels in recent years. (Paul Merrion and Bob Tita, “Woertz’s worry,” Crain’s Chicago Business, 5/11/08).

As food costs have risen, ethanol’s foes have gained political support in Congress. A group of 24 Republican senators, including then-presidential candidate John McCain, called on federal officials to roll back ethanol consumption mandates in early 2008.

Skeptics report that the production of the corn- and sugar-based fuels are also a driving force behind the displacement of indigenous people, an unnecessary and dangerous diversion of land away from food crop production, and a contributing factor in the destruction of forests. As the International Forum on Globalization puts it, “Archer Daniels Midland, Monsanto, and Cargill among others, have lately given up their well known advertising slogans from prior decades about their main job being to “feed a hungry world.” The new campaign might be based on a new slogan, “feed cars not people.” The net result is that, already, quite a few of those hungry people in the world are seeing food commodity prices rising rapidly, the value of food growing lands also rising rapidly due to scarcity, and their own prospects of feeding their families and communities falling.” (Jack Santa Barbara, “The False Promise of Biofuels,” International Forum on Globalization, 2007.)

Recent concerns about the use of antibiotics in ethanol production have also been raised. (See Julia Olmstead, “Fueling Resistance,” Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy, July 2009.)

Since it can only be used in most cars in concentrations up to 10 percent, ethanol remains just a small fraction of the nearly 140 billon gallons of gasoline used each year. (EIA, Petroleum Basic Statistics) Industry analysts report that new Flex Fuel Vehicles with engines designed to run on a larger percentage of ethanol -- up to 100 percent in some cases – can be expected in the coming years. But potential ethanol resources are also limited by the amount of land available to grow feedstock. According to the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS), using all of the corn grown in the U.S. with nothing left for food or animal feed would displace only about 15 percent of U.S. gasoline demand by 2025. (“The Truth About Ethanol,” UCS, updated 12/07.)

ADM, Ethanol and the Environment (also see environmental section above)

Although the Renewable Fuels Association claims that the “use of 10 percent ethanol blends reduces greenhouse gas emissions by 18-29 percent compared with conventional gasoline,” skeptics report that when the entire lifecycle of ethanol is considered, ethanol use provides no net benefit and may actually increase net greenhouse gas emissions. A report published by the International Forum on Globalization, for example, suggests that satisfying just 10 percent of U.S. fuel consumption using corn ethanol would add 127 million metric tons per year of additional CO2 emissions. (Jack Santa Barbara, “The False Promise of Biofuels” International Forum on Globalization and Institute for Policy Studies, 2007.).

The U.S. Energy Information Agency similarly reports that corn ethanol fuel use results in almost as much CO2 as gasoline, more methane and nitrous oxide, and considerably more water vapor. In addition to these greenhouse gases, burning ethanol contributes to urban smog, with byproducts including ozone and peroxy-acetyl-nitrate (PAN).(Mark Jacobson, Mark. Addressing Global Warming, Air Pollution Health Damage, and Long-Term Energy Needs Simultaneously. Stanford University: Dept. of Civil and Environmental Engineering, 9 May 2006.)

Moreover, other activities involved in the production of corn-based ethanol production account for significant greenhouse gas emissions, including corn farming, which degrades soil structure by leeching nitrogen from the soil (especially when corn stalks, leaves and cobs are used as corn stover to produce biofuels instead of being left in the field, where they mitigate the erosive quality of intensive corn production), leading to the increased use of fertilizer, which relies on petroleum and releases nitrous oxide, a potent greenhouse gas.

Many ethanol plants are also powered by coal, which has the highest greenhouse gas emissions of all the fossil fuels.

Ethanol plants are also responsible for other major pollutants, including Volatile Organic Compounds (VOCs), carbon monoxide and other carcinogens. (Patzek T.W. “Thermodynamics of the Corn-Ethanol Biofuel Cycle” Critical Reviews in Plant Sciences 2004: 23 (6): 519567.)

In conjunction with the U.S. Department of Energy (which contributed $1.48 billion to the project), ADM and the Midwest Geological Sequestration Consortium (led by the Illinois State Geological Survey) have developed plans to sequester one million tons of CO2 from its Decatur, Illinois plant in the Mr. Simon Sandstone reservoir, one of numerous carbon capture and storage pilot projects intended to slow down the growing atmospheric buildup of greenhouse gases. (“Secretary Chu Announces First Awards from $1.4 Billion for Industrial Carbon Capture and Storage Projects,” DOE Press Rel., 10/2/09.) Critics, including Greenpeace, have described plans to capture and store industrial carbon emissions as a "scam" and a "dangerous diversion" from better alternatives. (For more information go here and here)

Alternative Biofuels

Although ADM’s ethanol production relies heavily on corn, in recent years it has also announced plans to diversify its involvement into sugar-cane ethanol in Brazil (Laren Etter and Antonio Regalado, “ADM plans Entry Into Sugar-Cane Ethanol in Brazil,” Wall Street Journal, 6/22/07), as well as a plan to jointly explore (with Bayer and Daimler) the biodiesel potential of Jatropha, a Central American plant that can be cultivated on barren land.

ADM and ConocoPhilips announced in September 2007 that they would collaborate on the development of renewable transportation fuels from crops, wood and/or switchgrass.

Some environmental advocates suggest that corn-based ethanol (with its marginal net energy balance and fertilizer-reliant feedstock) is more damaging than cellulosic ethanol, which uses more benign crops such as switchgrass. Others, including a study published by the MIT Joint Program on the Science and Policy of Global Change in 2009, say cellulosic biofuels could have other unintended consequences, such as significant habitat loss from the clearing of large areas of natural forest. (J.M. Melillo et al., “Indirect Emissions from Biofuels: How Important?”, 356(5958) : 1397-1399, 2009).

Although ADM is involved in the development of cellulose, with its dominant share in corn-based ethanol (representing an investment of billions of dollars), it is unlikely to push for the elimination of corn. Grist columnist Tom Philpott reported in 2006 that ADM’s new CEO Patricia Woertz – a former Chevron executive – affirmed the company’s commitment to corn in the coming cellulosic age by declaring that the company’s main cellulosic push involved “waste” from the corn harvest.

In 2009 ADM won a $24.8-million grant from the U.S. Department of Energy to convert corn stalks, cobs and leaves into renewable fuels and an ethyl acrylate employed in plastics, adhesives and coatings. (Crains Chicago Business, 1/18/10)

History

ADM descended from the combination of various grain processors, including Daniels Linseed Co., which was founded in 1902 to make flax seed into linseed oil (used in paints, varnishes and castor oil). George Archer joined the firm in 1903.

On May 23 1923, Archer-Daniels Linseed Co. and Midlands Linseed Products Co. -- two leading Linseed producers -- joined to form the Archer Daniels Midland Company. John Daniels, George Archer and Samuel Mairs -- the three founders of ADM -- had a common goal of "year round production at low margins." The company, which was incorporated in Delaware, paid its first dividend in 1927.

The company's early success in research and development evolved out of early attempts to alter the chemical structure of linseed oil. Its expansion built on the development of new products, as well as the acquisition of other oil processing companies and extension into transportation. (Between 1929 and 1945, ADM's grain storage capacity increased from 7.5 million to 50.4 million bushels per day.) During the Depression the company began selling its oils to manufacturers of soaps, drugs, brake fluids, lubricants and petrochemicals. The company also put most of its products through advanced physical processing instead of selling them in a raw or semi-finished state -- a strategy that increased profit margins.

ADM entered the flour milling business in 1930, and was the first company to produce soy lecithin (1934). In 1949, it made its first move into edible oils, building its first edible oil refinery in 1950. Most of the company's customers in the 1940s were food and feed manufacturers, but it also sold to paint, leather, printing, paper, cosmetics, drugs, ceramics, rubber, munitions and insecticide makers. By the early 1950s ADM made 700 products and began investing overseas -- mostly through joint ventures with local partners. By then ADM was the U.S.'s leading processor of linseed oil and soybeans, as well as the fourth largest flour miller.

In 1965 ADM president John Daniels recruited Dwayne Andreas from Cargill. Andreas immediately eliminated the company's public-relations department, instituting a secretive culture. He expanded the company's soybean crushing operations, sold off a chemical business to Ashland Oil, and made a series of acquisitions, including National City Bank of Minneapolis (1969) Corn Sweeteners, Inc. (1971), Supreme Sugar (1973) and Tabor & Co. (1975). He built a fully integrated soybean and soyfoods processing operation in Decatur. In 1971, ADM purchased Corn Sweeteners, Inc., a leader in the production of High Fructose Corn Sweetener (HFCS), which became the company's most profitable product. By the late 1980s, ADM was the leading U.S. manufacturer of soybean products, HFCS, and ethanol, as well as the largest peanut sheller. Although few consumer products bore its name, it did launch NutriSoy and Harvest Burger, a textured vegetable protein. (ADM dropped Harvest Burger after Andreas retired).

In 1974, ADM purchased a soybean processing plant and edible oil refinery in Sao Paulo, Brazil, as well as a Cayman Islands-based trading corporation. Two years later, it sets up a joint venture by selling 50% of the Brazilian soybean and vegetable oil operations to Nestle. Its expansion in other countries -- Peru, Mexico, the Netherlands and Belgium -- came through partnerships with local interests.

Andreas was not only a skillful business operative who cultivated political support from both Republican and Democratic parties but he also made contributions to the ACLU as well as Martin Luther King, Jr.'s Southern Christian Leadership Conference.

Until the late 1990s, Dwayne Andreas and his family owned over 10% of the company's stock, with another 13% owned by other board members. Andreas solidified his power within the company in 1968 when he became chair of the Board's executive committee. Four of 17 board members were Andreas family members (Dwayne, his son Mick, Dwayne's brother Lowell and his nephew Martin). Once the price-fixing charges were announced, many institutional shareholders began to pressure the board for an independent investigation. (See Kurt Eichenwald, "A Shareholder Rebellion," NYTimes 10/19/95)

In 1996, ADM ranked 304th in Business Week's Global 1000, 125th in the U.S. By then it was also the largest U.S. processor of agricultural commodities. (James M. Connor, "Archer Daniels Midland: Price-Fixer to the World," December 2000).

Andreas' departure left the firm in the hands of G. Allen Andreas. With Dwayne in the background, still influencing the company's strategy, many saw little real change. In 1999, for example, Fortune named ADM as one of the companies with the worst boards.

In 2006, the final vestiges of the Andreas era finally seemed to disappear as Patricia Woertz, a former Chevron executive, was appointed as the new CEO.

(Sources include the International Directory of Corporate Histories and Julie A. Mitchell, Notable Corporate Chronologies, 2001)

(For ADM's description of its history, go here)

Financial information

Stock ticker symbol:

ADM

Major lines of business/segments:

ADM describes itself as being comprised of four divisions -- oilseeds processing, corn processing, agricultural services and other (net sales figures for 2009, from company 10-K).

1) Oilseeds Processing: $ 24.6 billion Oilseeds include soybeans, cottonseed, sunflower seeds, canola, rapeseed, peanuts, and flaxseed, which are processed into vegetable oils and protein meals principally for the food and feed industries, processed internally or resold into the marketplace as raw materials. Partially refined oil is sold for use in paints and other industrial products. Refined oil can be further processed for use in the production of biodiesel. Oilseed meals are used to make livestock and poultry feeds; oilseeds are also used in the production of specialty food and feed ingredients, including health and nutrition products.

2) Corn Processing: $ 7.8 billion Includes sweeteners, starches, dextrose, and syrups sold primarily to the food and soft drink industry, as well as the production of bioproducts such as ethanol.

3) Agricultural Services: $ 34.35 billion Manages ADM's grain elevator and transportation network to buy, store, clean, and transport agricultural commodities, such as oilseeds, corn, wheat, milo, oats, rice, and barley, and resells these commodities primarily as food and feed ingredients for the agricultural processing industry. In addition, the Agricultural Services’ segment includes activities related to edible bean procurement, rice milling, formula feed, and animal health and nutrition. Includes A.C. Toepfer International, a global merchant of agricultural commodities and processed products.

4) Other: $5.5 billion. Miscellaneous sales include aquiculture fish, hydroponic vegetables, grain merchandising and numerous joint ventures with farmers' cooperatives.

The company uses an interactive chart to describe how its business activities are structured -- starting with four main agricultural inputs -- oilseeds (soy etc.), wheat, corn and cocoa -- which are all processed in various ways to produce Food & Nutritional Ingredients, Animal Feed products, biofuels and other industrial products (e.g. bioplastics).

For a list of ADM financial subsidiaries, go here.

Link to annual report:

ADM Shareholder Reports

Additional descriptive data

Link to full list of subsidiaries:

Subsidiaries list (2009 10K Exh. 21 - see page 90)

Link to complete list of brands:

ADM Brands page

Geographic breakdown of revenues (sales and profits), assets, employees:

According to ADM's 2009 10-K, the company has 239 processing plants (128 in the U.S.; 111 elsewhere) and 330 procurement facilities (197 in the U.S.; 133 elsewhere). It's U.S. operations include:

23 oilseed crushing plants (93,000 Tonnes/day capacity) (GA, IL, IN, IA, KS, MN, MO, NE, ND, OH, SC, TN, TX)
13 oilseed refineries (GA, IL, IN, MN, MO, NE, ND, TN)
1 biodiesel plant (ND)
23 wheat flour mills
1 bulgur plant
2 corn flour mills
2 milo mills
1 starch and gluten plant (Iowa)
1 Honey drying operation (Wisc.)
4 chocolate and cocoa bean processing plants. (MA, NJ, WI, PA)

Internationally, ADM has:

21 oilseed crushing plants (Bolivia, Brazil, Canada, England, Germany, India, Mexico, Netherlands, Poland, Ukraine)
18 oilseed refineries (Bolivia, Brazil, Canada, Germany, India, Netherlands, Poland)
10 oilseed packaging plants (Bolivia, Brazil, England, Germany, India, Peru, Poland)
6 biodiesel plants (Brazil, Germany, India)
3 Fertilizer blending plants (Brazil)
20 flour mills (27,000 MMT capacity)
2 formula feed plants next to wheat flour mills (Belize and Grenada)
Rice milling plant (Jamaica)
1 starch and gluten plant (Canada)
13 chocolate and cocoa bean processing plants. (Belgium, Brazil, Canada, UK, Germany, Ghana, Ivory Coast, Netherlands and Singapore).
8 cocoa bean procurement and handling facilities (Brazil, Indonesia, and Ivory Coast)
101 grain elevators w/storage capacity of 120 MM bushels.

Specialized Information

Major brands:

Golden Peanut Company LLC, a joint venture between ADM and Alimenta (U.S.A.), Inc., supplies peanuts to the U.S. and external markets.

Stratas Foods, LLC, a joint venture between ADM and ACH Jupiter, LLC (UK) makes and sells edible oils.

ADM owns a 16% interest in Wilmar International (Singapore), the largest global processor and merchandiser of palm and lauric oils.

"Vegefull" products.

More detailed description of business strategy:

By the end of 2010, the company is expecting to build a coal cogeneration facility, a cocoa processing facility, a propylene/ethylene glycol production facility and a biodegradable (PAH) plastics production facility.

ADM spends about $50 million on R/D each year for research conducted at various locations, including the company's Decatur, IL, laboratory; Hamburg, Germany, Erith, UK, and Arras, France (vegetable oil research); Overland Park, KS (flour/bakery); Milwaukee, WI and Kood aan de Zaan, Netherlands (cocoa and chocolate). ADM is also funded by USDoE for working with Purdue U. to find a way to produce ethanol from lignocellulosic biomass. It is also working with John Deere and Monsanto to evaluate the sustainable collection, storage and transportation of corn stover (stalks, cobs and leaves left over after harvesting).

Derivatives and Accounting

ADM Derivatives is a division of ADM Investor Services, Inc., a futures clearing house with offices at the Chicago Board of Trade. The company trades in derivatives to bet on commodity prices and fix natural gas costs. As described in ADM's report to investors, "gains and losses arising from open and closed hedging transactions are deferred in other comprehensive income, net of applicable income taxes, and recognized as a component of cost of products sold and net sales and other operating income in the statement of earnings." (See "Critical Accounting Policies," in Management's Discussion of Financial Condition and Result of Operations, 10-K, 2009).

List of countries in which it operates:

Bolivia

Brazil

Bulgaria

Canada

Cayman Islands

France

Germany (Deutschland)

Hungary

India

Ireland

Mexico

Netherlands

Paraguay

Poland

Romania

Slovakia

Turkey

Ukraine

United Kingdom

United States

Links to federal contract rankings in U.S.:

Second Largest USDA Contractor (USASPending.gov, 2009 data)

Summary data on executive compensation and director compensation:

List of ADM Directors Victoria Podesta (53) VP since 5/07. Corporate communications consultant. John Rice (55) Executive VP. Career in Oilseed Processing, Food Oils divisions. Dennis C. Riddle (62) VP since 5/06. Former President of Corn Processing Division. Scott A. Roberts (49) Member of law department since 1985. Scott A. Roney (45) VP. Member of law department 1991-2001. Marc A. Sanner (56), VP and General Auditor from 11/08. David Smith (54) Exec VP, General Counsel since 1/03. John P. Stott (42) VP and Controller since 12/06. Patricia Woertz (56) Chairman of the Board since 2/07. CEO & President since 6/06. Former VP at Chevron. Mark N. Zenuk (42), VP from 8/05.

Archer Daniels Midland

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