Criticisms of Cargill facts for kids
Cargill Inc. is a huge company that works with food and farming all over the world. It's owned by the Cargill family and has been around for over 150 years! It's the biggest privately owned company in the United States, making billions of dollars each year.
Because Cargill is so big and works in so many countries, people have raised concerns about how its actions affect the environment and human rights. Groups like the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO) have pointed out these issues since the early 2000s. Since Cargill is so influential, many believe that if it makes changes, it could inspire other big companies to do the same.
Cargill is one of four major companies, sometimes called the "ABCD group" (ADM, Bunge, Cargill, and Dreyfus), that control a lot of the soybean business in Brazil. They have invested a lot in storage and ports. Some groups, like Greenpeace, say that Cargill has contributed to cutting down parts of the Amazon rainforest. Because of protests, one of Cargill's ports was even closed for several years.
There have also been concerns about how some workers, especially children, were treated in the chocolate industry in the Ivory Coast. In response to these concerns, Cargill has invested money into programs to help monitor and improve child labor situations since 2019.
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About Cargill and Its Impact
Cargill Inc. is a very large company that has been owned by the Cargill family for five generations. It's a global leader in the food, farming, and financial industries, with 160,000 employees in 70 countries and partners in over 125 countries. Its main office is in Minneapolis, Minnesota. For many years, it has been the largest privately owned company in the United States, earning over $113 billion in 2019.
Cargill is part of important groups like the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO) and the Soft Commodities Forum (SCF). These groups work to make sure that farming and trade are done in a way that protects the environment and people.
Even though Cargill is part of these groups, people have still worried about its environmental record in different parts of the world. The RSPO once said that if Cargill, which is a very important palm oil company in the U.S., took "bold action" to reduce its negative impacts, it could set a great example for other farming businesses worldwide. Some have even called Cargill a "cartel," meaning a group of companies that work together to control a market.
Environmental Concerns
Palm Oil and Forests
Many groups, including Friends of the Earth, the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), and the Rainforest Action Network (RAN), have expressed worries about how Cargill's palm oil farms affect the environment in Indonesia and Papua New Guinea. Cargill says it has policies and promises to produce palm oil in a way that is good for the environment.
In 2004, Cargill became a member of the RSPO, which creates rules for making palm oil in a sustainable way. Members are supposed to follow these rules. However, in 2010, RSPO investigations found that Cargill's palm oil operations were not always matching its promises.
In 2004, Cargill owned five oil palm farms in Indonesia and Papua New Guinea. It was also the biggest U.S. buyer of palm oil, getting about 11% of all the palm oil made in Indonesia. By 2006, many problems were reported at Cargill's palm oil farms, including issues with local communities.
A 2006 newspaper article said that Cargill bought palm oil from other companies that were known for destroying rainforests by burning them, which is against Indonesian law. A 2007 FAO report explained that oil palm farms were causing tropical rainforests around the world to be cut down. Indonesia had one of the highest rates of deforestation, with a lot of rainforest being destroyed every day. Palm oil is used in many products, from food to cosmetics.
In 2008, it was reported that local communities lost their traditional forests and farmland to Cargill's oil palm farms. They often didn't get fair payment for their land and didn't agree to the farms being built there. By 2009, the Rainforest Action Network said that Cargill's farms had cleared large areas of rainforest, causing a lot of deforestation. Cargill was clearing forests in Borneo without a required environmental check.
In Papua New Guinea, the RSPO reported in 2007 that farmers on Cargill's palm oil farms were getting stuck in debt. Cargill's own managers admitted they couldn't stop children from working on their farms there. In 2010, the RSPO also said that Cargill was burning and clearing rainforests in Indonesia, which caused problems with local communities and destroyed important wetlands.
Cargill started its palm oil farms in South Sumatra in the mid-1990s. By 2019, it employed many women and men in Southeast Asia. In 2018, the company started offering maternity benefits to encourage more women to work in jobs that were usually done by men.
Amazon Rainforest and Soy
By 2012, Cargill was one of the big companies that controlled over half of the soybean processing in Brazil. In 2003, Cargill finished building a port for processing soybeans in Santarém, Brazil. This port made it cheaper and easier to transport soybeans, which encouraged more soy farming in the nearby rainforest areas.
As farmers cleared rainforest land for soy crops, Greenpeace started protesting Cargill's new port in late 2003. Even though Cargill followed state laws, it didn't follow a federal law that required a detailed environmental study. In 2006, a Brazilian court told Cargill to complete an environmental assessment. The local community had supported the port at first, hoping for jobs, but their opinions changed when jobs didn't appear. In 2007, the Brazilian Environmental Agency closed the port.
In April 2006, Greenpeace released a report saying Cargill was involved in cutting down the Amazon rainforest. The report also claimed that some soy farms connected to Cargill had workers laboring for very long hours, seven days a week.
Greenpeace also showed that animal feed made from Amazonian soy was used to raise chickens and other meat sold in Europe. Major food stores like McDonald's and others in the UK agreed to stop buying meat raised on Amazonian soy. This put pressure on Cargill and other big companies to prove their soy wasn't grown on newly cleared rainforest land.
In July 2006, Cargill and other soy businesses signed the Soy Moratorium agreement. They promised not to buy soybeans from newly deforested land for two years. Cargill submitted an environmental study for the port in 2010, and it reopened in 2012.
By 2015, more new ports were being planned, leading to even more growth. In 2019, Cargill admitted that the soy industry in Brazil would not reach its goal of ending deforestation by 2020. By July 2019, Brazil had become the world's biggest soybean exporter. The new ports and shipping facilities built by Cargill and other big companies made Brazil's soybean industry even more competitive.
Protecting Wetlands
Cargill has also faced controversy over its plan to build a large housing development on its privately owned salt ponds in Redwood City. This land was originally marshland along San Francisco Bay. It was turned into salt-making areas in 1901. Cargill bought the Leslie Salt Company in 1978 and continued making salt there.
In 2000, Cargill offered to sell the land to government wildlife agencies, but they couldn't afford it. However, 16,500 acres were bought from Cargill in 2003 through a mix of donation and sale. Later, courts decided the land had been valued too highly.
Cargill then teamed up with a home builder to propose a "50/50 Plan." This plan would build 12,000 houses and other buildings on about half of the land, and turn the other half into wetlands, parks, and open spaces.
Many newspapers and over 150 elected officials have said that the salt ponds are not a good place for housing. A local environmental group called Save The Bay has strongly criticized Cargill for trying to build on these wetlands. However, others argue that Cargill's plan doesn't involve destroying existing wetlands, but rather building on areas that are currently salt ponds and salt-making facilities.
Local residents tried to keep the salt ponds as open space, but in 2008, voters in Redwood City voted against changing the city rules to make development harder. Since then, a group of over 30 environmental and community groups, led by Save The Bay, has continued to fight the proposed development. They believe the salt ponds should be restored as part of a nearby wildlife refuge, similar to the land Cargill sold in 2003, which is now a large wetland restoration project.
Water Pollution Incidents
In June 2007, Cargill's operations in Australia were fined A$37,500 because a wastewater pipe broke in January 2006. The wastewater flowed into a stormwater system and then into a wetland.
In August 2004, the Florida Department of Environmental Protection warned Cargill Phosphate company that its protective wall was not strong enough. While repairs were being made, a storm broke through the wall, spilling 65 million gallons of harmful wastewater into Tampa Bay. A company spokesperson called it one of the worst environmental disasters in Tampa Bay in years. Years later, another company, Mosaic Fertilizer (which was owned by the Cargill family until 2012), began cleaning up and restoring the areas damaged by the spill. In 2015, the EPA fined Mosaic about $2 billion for not properly storing and getting rid of waste from making chemicals used in fertilizers at its plants.
Food Safety and Contamination
Contaminated Grain in Iraq
In 1970, Cargill sold a large amount of grain seeds to Basra, Iraq. These seeds were treated with a chemical called methylmercury, which was banned in many Western countries. The seeds were dyed red to show they were dangerous and not for eating, only for planting. However, when the seeds arrived in Iraq, some were given away by the government. Since the warnings were only in English and Spanish, many people didn't understand the danger and used the seeds for food. This caused many people to get sick.
Beef Recall in the USA
In October 2007, Cargill announced that it was recalling almost 850,000 frozen beef patties made at its plant in Wisconsin. The patties were thought to be contaminated with E. coli, a type of bacteria that can cause sickness. The beef was sold mainly at Walmart and Sam's Club stores.
Cargill Australia Exports
In March 2009, Cargill Australia had its license to export meat to Japan and the United States temporarily stopped. This happened after E. coli was found in Cargill's meat containers from its plant in Wagga Wagga. In late April 2009, the license was given back to Cargill Australia.
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