The Cargill-MacMillan Family Is Winning the Lottery but Losing the Planet

Twice in the last few weeks, people in the U.S. could buy a lottery ticket for a jackpot in excess of $1 billion. But the Cargill-MacMillan family doesn’t need to play, their company just earned them a cool $1 billion—on top of the estimated $65 billion they already have—and who knows how big the jackpot will be next year.

In early August, Cargill, the largest privately owned company in America, and the largest agribusiness company in the world, announced record revenues of $177 billion. The Cargill-MacMillan Family, whose ranks include more billionaires than any other family in the world, get to split a chunk of the profits. While most of the world wrestles with pandemic recovery, supply chain disruptions, food price increases, and the increasing impacts of climate change, Cargill has posted 10-digit profits three years in a row.

The Cargill family’s windfall comes at a price—for everyone else. The company’s reputation for the destruction of nature, human rights abuses, and corporate malfeasance is notorious—even as the dearth of environmental and social governance boosts the company’s robust bottom line.

Put simply, it is outrageous that in 2023 one of the richest families in America is still profiting from African children laboring on plantations.

Cargill has committed numerous times to address human rights abuses and the destruction of nature in its supply chain, but it has not followed through on these commitments:

• In 2001, Cargill publicly acknowledged the problem of forced child labor in the cocoa industry and committed to eliminating it and the other “worst forms” of child labor in the production of chocolate;
• In 2014, Cargill acknowledged the agriculture sector’s significant role in the destruction of the world’s forests and promised to end it; and
• In 2022, Cargill expanded that commitment to include the protection of critical natural ecosystems other than forests as well.

Not one of these commitments have been fulfilled. In fact, the problems have gotten worse.

Industrial agriculture is the single largest driver of deforestation and the destruction of nature, and Cargill is the single largest driver of industrial agriculture. In the years since committing to end deforestation by 2020, global tropical deforestation actually increased 40%. An area of 81 million acres of primary tropical forest has been lost, about 1.5 times the size of Cargill’s home state of Minnesota.

In 2018, the Brazilian government levied a $6.5 million fine on Cargill and four other companies for their role in illegal deforestation. The following year, Cargill publicly abandoned its goal and, subsequently, offered a new commitment: to end deforestation by 2030. Another decade of forest destruction is probably longer than the planet can stand, given current rates—even if the company kept its commitment.

According to the peer-reviewed International Journal of Management Studies and Social Science Research, “Cargill continues to adjust its goals for the future based on its inability to obtain its sustainability objectives in a timely manner.”

The stage continues to be set for progress in public commitments addressing some of the most critical issues in our time—or any time.

It has been demonstrated time and again that Latin America contains enough degraded and deforested lands—more than 1.6 billion acres, or about two-thirds of the size of the entire United States including Alaska—to dramatically expand agricultural production without destroying forests or other intact ecosystems.

Cargill’s human rights record is no better. In Côte d’Ivoire, where Cargill is the largest cocoa exporter, the prevalence of child labor in cocoa production has increased 14% since the company made its commitments. Even the prevalence of hazardous child labor has increased 13% in this timeframe.

The U.S. government points out that 1.56 million children work on cacao farms in Côte d’Ivoire and Ghana. According to International Rights Advocates, overwhelming evidence shows that forced child labor is still being widely used in the cocoa industry, including by Cargill’s suppliers.

Put simply, it is outrageous that in 2023 one of the richest families in America is still profiting from African children laboring on plantations.

For years the Cargill-MacMillan family has delegated the management of the company. They have trusted Cargill’s executives to conduct business ethically, to follow up on its commitments, and to report accurately on this critically important work. That trust was not rewarded. But the reward for not holding the executives accountable is the equivalent of a billion-dollar lottery ticket. Annually.

We are not asking for anything other than what the company has already promised. Cargill is well-situated to be a leader on these issues rather than a laggard. The stage continues to be set for progress in public commitments addressing some of the most critical issues in our time—or any time.

It’s time for the family to step up and show leadership: Honor Cargill’s commitment to end human rights abuses and the destruction of nature throughout its entire supply chain.

It is time for the Cargill-MacMillans to take these matters into their hands and steer the company into the future.