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Cargill: The worst company in the world (2019) [pdf]
- ajharrison 6y agoGo Vegan or shut the fuck up.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- arthurcolle 6y agoIs the site down? Anyone have a mirror/archive linky? On mobile so dont have my little web archive bookmarklet... :'(
- amerine 6y agohttps://www.dropbox.com/s/e5ctkdja3nenz7p/Mighty-Earth-Report-Cargill-The-Worst-Company-in-the-World-July-2019.pdf?dl=0 https://www.dropbox.com/s/e5ctkdja3nenz7p/Mighty-Earth-Repor...
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- amerine 6y agoWhy don’t we hear more about Cargill on this site?
- kube-system 6y agoBecause their main business is agriculture?
- newsclues 6y agoArgriTech is huge.
- uberdru 6y agoCorrection: "agribusiness".
- protomyth 6y agoSorta, but not really https://www.cargill.com/products https://www.cargill.com/products It was their main business, but I'm not sure it is anymore.
- MattGaiser 6y agoThat still seems like agriculture and agricultural products.
- protomyth 6y agoSteel, Salt, Transportation, and all the Finance stuff are big parts of the company. Ag is still a big thing, but I'm not sure if the others don't bring in more money.
- protomyth 6y agoThey are a private company, so no stock drama only some family drama. They are out of Minnesota and most people ignore that as a corporate center. Most of what they do isn't under the name Cargill. They actually resemble an old conglomerate more than a focused company. Heck, most employees don't know what all they do, and you really don't interact with that many other divisions. Also, realistically and in comparison to other companies, you really have to stretch to call them public enemy one. There is really no danger of Cargill impacting your life like one of the big tech companies. There are other strong players in everyone of their markets.
- gruez 6y ago>Also, realistically and in comparison to other companies, you really have to stretch to call them public enemy one. There is really no danger of Cargill impacting your life like one of the big tech companies. There are other strong players in everyone of their markets. You can make the same argument for monsanto, but they get a lot of public flak.
- protomyth 6y agoMonsanto is a bit more "in your face" than Cargill. In fact, Cargill lost a seed lawsuit that had some deep effects. How they write about it is interesting https://www.cargill.com/history-story/en/SEED-SALE-AND-INTEGRITY.jsp https://www.cargill.com/history-story/en/SEED-SALE-AND-INTEG...
- bovermyer 6y agoExcept Cargill now owns what used to be Monsanto.
- dragonwriter 6y ago> Except Cargill now owns what used to be Monsanto. No it doesn't, Bayer owns what used to be Monsanto. https://www.bayer.com/en/procurement/monsanto-acquisition https://www.bayer.com/en/procurement/monsanto-acquisition
- bane 6y agoFor many of the reasons already listed. They're a giant, private, agricultural company that's almost entirely in parts of the supply chain that consumers don't see (B2B), but almost certainly impacts most Americans (and many other parts of the world) every single day. They're also very low margin, and if you aren't working in farming areas, has a corporate headquarters in a place not too much tech happens in. There's almost no reason for it to ever show up here. However, if you were awake today and ate food, you probably encountered something Cargill had something to do with. They also purposely try to keep a relatively low profile. One of their very first consumer facing products was Truvia, which didn't come out until 2008, for a company founded in the 19th century.
- akadruid1 6y agonon-pdf link: https://stories.mightyearth.org/cargill-worst-company-in-the-world/ https://stories.mightyearth.org/cargill-worst-company-in-the...
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- baxtr 6y agowow. it's really disgusting to flip through this. sane advice: don't go into it if you are already in a bad mood.
- sradman 6y agoI enjoyed the 2015 EconTalk podcast Greg Page on Food, Agriculture, and Cargill [1]: > Greg Page, former CEO of Cargill, the largest privately-held company in America, talks to EconTalk host Russ Roberts about the global food supply and the challenges of running a company with employees and activity all over the world. Page talks about the role of prices in global food markets in signaling information and prompting changes in response to those signals. Other topics include government's role in agriculture, the locavore movement and genetically modified organisms (GMOs). [1] https://www.econtalk.org/greg-page-on-food-agriculture-and-cargill/ https://www.econtalk.org/greg-page-on-food-agriculture-and-c...
- beloch 6y agoIn April, in the Canadian province of Alberta, an outbreak at a single Cargill meat packing plant[1] accounted for one quarter of all COVID-19 cases in the entire province. The outbreak was blamed on cramped and overcrowded working conditions, although the province did inspect and fail to close down the facility[2]. The majority of the workers were poorly paid temporary foreign workers, and significant numbers were laid off when the plant was temporarily shut down[3]. Despite the lessons learned from this outbreak, other Cargill facilities in the province continue to have outbreaks[4]. [1]https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/calgary/3rd-covid-19-death-cargill-meat-processing-plant-high-river-1.5565265 https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/calgary/3rd-covid-19-death-ca... [2]https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/calgary/cargill-alberta-covid-19-deena-hinshaw-1.5537377 https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/calgary/cargill-alberta-covid... [3]https://www.theglobeandmail.com/canada/alberta/article-alberta-immigrant-group-says-meat-workers-afraid-after-cargill-plant/ https://www.theglobeandmail.com/canada/alberta/article-alber... [4]https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/calgary/covid-outbreak-cargill-case-ready-facility-calgary-1.5687478 https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/calgary/covid-outbreak-cargil...
- mschuster91 6y agoLooks exactly the same situation as we had in Germany with meatpacking: poor people exploited in gruesome work conditions and inadequately housed. That and farming slave labor is what drove superspread corona events over the last months.
- norwegianwhale 6y agoMeat factories pay very well for someone with no skills. I for one I am grateful for being given the opportunity to work in meatpacking industry for a summer.
- ethbr0 6y agoPoint. It's easy to assume that the alternative to bad_job is better_job, when in fact it's no_job. It's good to fight for better working conditions for all, but not without remembering the lowest-end of the wage ladder. (Which isn't to be interpreted as an argument against minimum wage increases, but rather that there needs to be an on-ramp for those who didn't grow up with privilege)
- stevehiehn 6y agoJeez, 20yrs ago when I finished highschool I worked the kill floor at Cargill (Guelph Ont, CAN) for 4 months.
- baby 6y agoWaiting for the Netflix documentary or an episode from John Oliver.
- dang 6y agoA thread from last year: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20443472 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20443472
- Reason077 6y ago> "Cargill is the United States’ largest privately held company" I wonder, should large companies be required to go public once they grow beyond a certain size? Does private ownership reduce transparency and accountability? Are privately held companies more likely to be secretive "evil corps" like Koch and Cargill?
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- VPenkov 6y agoMaybe, but how would you achieve that in a way that a company can't evade the criteria? A company can split up and diversify its operations across multiple companies but still operate as one. FTE count, annual revenue, amount of offices, etc. are all things that a company can have direct influence on.
- darth_avocado 6y agoHow about start holding our elected officials accountable? I mean as much as I felt disgusted by the things I read, I am more disgusted by the fact that the company just gets away with these things. I mean they paid $25 million for price fixing because it was unfair to other big corporations or $250 million for tax avoidance, but almost nothing for every time they dumped toxic waste into the water because it's the public that gets affected? I'm sorry but we need to make the elected officials work for us, not corporations.
- TimSchumann 6y agoSo this is something I actually feel somewhat knowledgeable (qualified?) enough to speak on. As to why, happy to discuss in the comments, though I don't think it's relevant to what I'm about to say. Cargill is just another 'private company' in the same way that Carnegie Steel was just another private company, or Standard Oil was just another publicly traded company. It's actually a family business in the truest sense of the word. The family itself owns nearly the entire financial stake in the business, and controls the rest in all but name. With 115+ billion in annual revenue, they are one of the largest companies in the world, public or private. I believe if you exclude state owned enterprises, they would be top 50 worldwide somewhere around Microsoft. And as far as companies go, at least on the corporate side, they seem to treat their employees well from both a benefits and compensation standpoint. They operate in multiple markets with near impunity where they are, essentially, the only buyer or seller of goods at scale. And, depending on who you believe and how you read into things, are responsible for anything ranging from really terrible industrial accidents, all the way up to exploitation and nation state style cover-ups and atrocities. Why is this? And this is where I get to the 'trust me if you dare, just my opinion' part of the post, but... few short reasons. One -- They're privately held, and subject to much less scrutiny because of it. Two -- They're a generational wealth family business. Combine that with the lack of 'publicly traded' above and those who are actually delegated the work have no incentive to step out of line. Three -- In almost every market they're in, the cost of them ceasing operations in that market is perceived as more harmful, for everyone, than whatever negative externalities they happen to create. Happy to clarify, or hear how I'm wrong in my thinking.
- ncmncm 6y agoThere is no company or person so bad that defenders won't crawl out of the woodwork. There are laws already on the books allowing corporate officers to be charged individually for, e.g., wrongful deaths, gross negligence, destroyed livelihoods. All we need is for prosecutors to start using them. Whenever I mention this, somebody pops up babbling about hysteria, as if those laws were written and passed in some sort of fit.