Dwayne Andreas is the politically wired former CEO of Archer Daniels Midland. He recently boasted to Reuters that he wanted to make ADM the world's dominant agriculture firm because, to his way of thinking, there's simply nothing more powerful than controlling the world's food supply. He said agribusiness is more powerful than the oil industry. Everything else is a luxury. Food is what you need to sustain life every day.
Food is fuel.
You can't run a tractor without fuel and you can't run a human being without it either. Food is the absolute beginning. In response to the new corporate combines, the farmer cooperatives themselves are merging, creating an ever-narrowing vortex of concentration. On May 12 of this year, two of the nation's biggest farmer coops, Farmland Industries and Cenex Harvest States Cooperatives, announced their intention to marry. United Country Brands will rank as the United States' third biggest grain company, behind only Cargill and Archer Daniels Midlands.