Cargill

One of the world's largest food processors, privately owned Cargill announced sale of its two remaining feedlots, holding 155,000 head of cattle, to ethanol maker Green Plains. The transaction will make Green Plains the fourth-largest cattle feeder in the nation with a feedlot capacity of 255,000 head, said Drovers Cattle Network.

Nearly 2 million acres — 3,100 square miles — of forested land were cleared for agriculture in the Brazilian Amazon in the year ending July 2016, while Bolivia has cut down 865,000 acres, equal to 1,351 square miles, annually, says The New York Times. "A decade after the 'Save the Rainforest' movement forced changes that dramatically slowed deforestation across the Amazon basin, activity is roaring back in some of the biggest expanses of forests in the world," said the newspaper.

Cargill has stopped using an important human antibiotic to prevent disease in turkeys, Reuters reported. It was the latest step by a major meat processing company to drop an antibiotic because of concerns about the the impact on public health. Cargill has not used the drug, gentamicin, to prevent disease in turkeys that supply its two biggest brands, Honeysuckle White and Shady Brook Farms, since Aug. 1, a company statement said. Cargill said it would continue to use antibiotics to treat sick turkeys and to stop the spread of a disease within flocks that include sick birds.

Food industry giant Cargill “has created a sugarlike product that seems perfect,” said the Minneapolis Star Tribune. But while it tastes like sugar and has no calories, it comes from the lab, so “Cargill faces an enormous marketing challenge with its breakthrough ingredient.”

A Chinese government commission announced the merger of COFCO, the nation's largest food trader, with Chinatex Corp., one of the country's main textile and grain-trading groups, said China Daily. The new company will be "a bigger rival to compete with the so-called ABCD companies." The "ABCDs" are the long-time international farm export and processing companies — ADM, Bunge, Cargill and Louis Dreyfus.

Cargill, the world's largest privately owned food processor, is taking steps to "de-commoditize," says the Financial Times, so it can satisfy interest among consumers for natural food, meaning non-GMO ingredients or food grown under specific production methods. Marcel Smits, Cargill chief financial officer, says the additional costs of creating a separate channel for a particular product, such as GMO-free corn syrup, are offset by higher profit margins.

Some of the largest U.S. food processors and retailers, including Walmart, Cargill and Tyson Foods, are "urging Congress to build on investments in the Fiscal 2017 appropriations legislation that would help combat antibiotic-resistant bacteria," says Feedstuffs.

A new survey of more than 500 poultry workers in Arkansas found that 62 percent had experienced some kind of wage violation (e.g. not being paid or being deducted unfairly for safety gear) and 44 percent reported being verbally or sexually harassed.

One of the largest U.S. meat packers, privately owned Cargill, said it will reduce by 20 percent its use of "shared class" antibiotics on slaughter cattle in the four feed yards that it owns in the Great Plains and in four additional lots operated by a business partner, Friona Industries.

In Fort Morgan, Colorado 130 former employees at a Cargill meatpacking plant are suing the company for religious discrimination, says The New York Times.

Agribusiness giant Cargill is selling its crop-insurance agency to Silveus Insurance Group, based in Warsaw, Ind. In a joint announcement, the companies said the transaction is expected to become final in mid-January. Terms of the sale were not announced.

Senate Judiciary chairman Charles Grassley asked the Justice Department for an antitrust review of an agreement for JBS, the giant Brazilian meatpacker, to buy the pork operations of agribusiness rival Cargill for $1.45 billion.

Thirteen of the largest U.S. companies "are joining President Obama" to push "a slew of policies meant to curb the effects of climate change," said The Hill newspaper.

The giant Brazilian meatpacker JBS, a relative newcomer to North America, will buy the pork operations of agribusiness rival Cargill for $1.45 billion, the companies announced.

ADM, the world's largest corn processor, sued Syngenta in state court in Louisiana over cargoes of corn rejected by China because they contained an unapproved Syngenta variety, said Bloomberg.

Seed company Syngenta says it acted responsibly in selling two strains of genetically engineered corn that are approved for cultivation in the United States although not allowed for import by China, says DTN.

The Argentinian news portal Infobae says the government is considering whether to create a grain company of its own to compete with the multinational exporters - Cargill, ADM, Bunge and Dreyfus - who dominate farm exports, says AgroSouth News.

Class-action lawsuits asking $1 billion in damages from seed company Syngenta were filed in federal court Iowa, Illinois and and Nebraska.