To subscribe to Agweek, click here. He'll take on the new post June 1. Cargill diversified in the 1970s and 1980s into such areas as steel, salt and other enterprises and recently has been shifting back to food and agriculture-related enterprises.
Page says agriculture is in for exciting times, as Asian economies recover.
A son of a John Deere dealer, Page went to Cargill shortly after earning his bachelor's in economics at University of North Dakota in Grand Forks in 1973. N.D. Page joined Cargill as a Feed Division trainee in 1974. Cargill Southeast Asia Ltd. Three years later, he was involved in the startup of Sun Valley Thailand, a poultry operation in the Saraburi Province. He returned to Minneapolis in 1992 to work with the newly formed Cargill Meat Sector, working with the U.S. beef operations of Cargll's Excell subsidiary. Later, he worked on Cargill's beef operations, worldwide.