Editing Cargill (section)

===20th century===

Upon Sam Cargill's death in 1903, William Cargill became the sole owner of the La Crosse office. John MacMillan was named general manager of Cargill Elevator Company and moved his family to Minneapolis. William Cargill died in 1909, creating a fiscal crisis for the company. MacMillan worked to resolve the credit issues and to force his brother-in-law William S. Cargill out of the company. The current owners are descended from John MacMillan's two sons, John H. MacMillan Jr., and Cargill MacMillan Sr., and his youngest brother-in-law, Austen S. Cargill I.

John MacMillan ran the company until his retirement in 1936. Under his leadership Cargill grew several fold, expanding out of the Midwest by opening its first East coast offices, in New York, in 1923. He was also the architect of the company's strategy of internationalism.<ref name=":0">{{Cite book |last1=Blas |first1=Javier |title=The World For Sale: Money, Power, and the Traders Who Barter the Earth's Resources |last2=Farchy |first2=Jack |publisher=Oxford University Press |year=2021 |isbn=978-0-19-007895-9 |location=Oxford |pages=31 |language=en}}</ref> He opened the company's first Canadian, European and Latin American offices in 1928, 1929, and 1930. He was also noted for his involvement in the controversial commercial rapprochement between the U.S. and the [[Soviet Union]].<ref name=":0" /> 

The first of the crises was the debt left by the death of William W. Cargill. The company issued $2.25 million in Gold Notes, backed by Cargill stock, to pay off its creditors. The Gold Notes were due in 1917, but thanks to record grain prices caused by [[World War I]] all debts were paid by 1915.

As World War I continued into 1917, Cargill made record earnings and faced criticisms of [[war profiteer]]ing. Four years later, as a fallout from the financial crash of 1920, Cargill posted its first loss.

Cargill opened its first Canadian operations in [[Montreal]] in 1928 as Cargill Grain Company Ltd.<ref name="timeline">{{cite web |url=https://www.cargill.com/doc/1432078093613/pdf-cargill-timeline.pdf |title=Cargill Timeline |page=5 |publisher=Cargill |accessdate=June 19, 2017}}</ref> Headquartered in [[Winnipeg]],<ref name="limited"/> it employs up to 8,000 people in Canada.<ref name="limited">{{cite web |url=http://www.cargill.ca/en/about/index.jsp |title=About Cargill in Canada |publisher=Cargill |accessdate=June 19, 2017}}</ref><ref name="cbr">{{cite web |url=http://www.cbr.ca/CompanyProfile.aspx?CompanyID=3849 |title=Cargill |publisher=Canadian Business Resource |accessdate=June 19, 2017}}</ref><ref name="cgovt">{{cite web |url=http://www.ic.gc.ca/app/ccc/srch/nvgt.do?lang=eng&prtl=1&estblmntNo=131556430000&profile=cmpltPrfl&profileId=501&app=sold |title=Cargill Limited |publisher=[[Government of Canada]] |accessdate=June 19, 2017}}</ref>

One of the biggest criticisms of Cargill has been its perceived arrogance (see, for example, Brewster Kneen in the ''Ecologist'' and also Greg Muttitt in the same journal). The MacMillans' aggressive management style led to a decades-long feud with the [[Chicago Board of Trade]].<ref name=":1">{{Cite book |last1=Greising |first1=David |title=Brokers, Bagmen, and Moles: Fraud and Corruption in the Chicago Futures Markets |last2=Morse |first2=Laurie |publisher=John Wiley & Sons |year=1991 |isbn=0-471-53057-3 |location=New York |pages=61–63 |language=en}}</ref> It began in 1934 when the Board denied membership to Cargill.<ref name=":1" /> The US government overturned the Board's ruling and forced it to accept Cargill as a member. The 1936 corn crop failed and with the 1937 crop unavailable until October, the Chicago Board of Trade ordered Cargill to sell some of its corn. Cargill refused to comply.<ref name="Forbes1102"/>

The US Commodity Exchange Authority and Chicago Board of Trade accused Cargill of trying to [[Cornering the market|corner]] the corn market. In 1938, the Chicago Board suspended Cargill and three of its officers from the trading floor. When the Board lifted its suspension a few years later, Cargill refused to rejoin, instead trading through independent traders. During [[World War II]], MacMillan Jr. continued to expand the company, which boomed as it stored and transported grain and built [[T1 tanker]]s and [[Towboat]]s ships for the [[United States Navy]].<ref name="Forbes1102"/> In 1962, Cargill rejoined the Chicago Board of Trade, two years after MacMillan's death.

In 1960, Erwin Kelm became the first non-family chief executive. Aiming for expansion into [[Downstream (manufacturing)|downstream production]], he led the company into milling, [[starch]]es, and [[syrup]]s. As the company grew, it developed a [[Market Intelligence|market intelligence]] network as it coordinated its commodities trading, processing, [[freight]], shipping, and [[futures contract|futures]] businesses. In the decades before [[email]], the company relied on its own [[Teletypewriter message|telex-based]] system for internal communication.<ref name="Forbes1102"/> By 1972, Cargill’s business grew with $5 billion in sales, becoming the largest agricultural trader in the world.<ref>{{Cite book |last1=Blas |first1=Javier |title=The World for Sale: Money, Power, and the Traders Who Barter the Earth's Resources |last2=Farchy |first2=Jack |publisher=Oxford University Press |year=2021 |isbn=978-0-19-007897-3 |location=Oxford |pages=38 |language=en}}</ref>
[[File:Dust fills air as ships are loaded from the Cargill grain elevator - NARA - 551577.jpg|thumb|right|Dust fills the air as ships are loaded from a Cargill grain elevator in [[Duluth, Minnesota]], 1973]]

When the [[Soviet Union]] entered the grain markets in the 1970s, demand grew to unprecedented levels, and Cargill benefitted. In 1963, Cargill had already negotiated a $40 million wheat deal with the USSR, establishing a relationship that later involved a series of larger deals.<ref name=":0" /> When [[Whitney MacMillan]], nephew of John Jr., took over the company from Kelm in 1976, revenue approached $30 billion. The US government put pressure on big grain exporters with allegations of manipulating the market, and Cargill was a major target, but it emerged without any major changes.<ref name="Forbes1102"/>

In 1978, Cargill purchased the large [[Leslie Salt]] refining company in [[Newark, California]], from [[McCormick & Company|Schilling]].<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.allelementsdesign.com/schilling/company/salt/leslie.html|title=Schilling Family, leslie |work=www.allelementsdesign.com |access-date=November 5, 2014}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.allelementsdesign.com/schilling/company/salt/cargill.html|title=Schilling Family, cargill |work=www.allelementsdesign.com |access-date=November 5, 2014}}</ref>

In 1979, Cargill entered the meat-processing business with the purchase of beef processor MBPXL (later Excel).<ref name=excelhistory>{{cite web |url=https://appserver.excelmeats.com/about/history.htm |title=Excel History |website=ExcelMeats.com |access-date=June 23, 2016 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160816122055/https://appserver.excelmeats.com/about/history.htm |archive-date=August 16, 2016 |url-status=dead }}</ref> The division expanded into turkey, food service and food distribution businesses and is now known as [[Cargill Meat Solutions]].

In 1986 Cargill started operations in Venezuela through a partnership with the Possenti family's Mimesa C.A. to form Agroindustrial Mimesa in Maracaibo, dedicated to the manufacturing of flour and pasta. Expansion followed thereafter.<ref>{{Cite web |url=https://www.cargill.com.ve/en/history-in-venezuela |title=History in Venezuela &#124; Cargill Venezuela |website=www.cargill.com.ve}}</ref>

Tensions arose with the company's private shareholders, as Cargill typically put 80% of earnings back into the business. By the early 1990s, members of the Cargill and MacMillan families became upset that their shares in the company were yielding mediocre [[dividend]]s. Demands rose for an [[initial public offering]] to turn the company public. The company responded with an employee stock ownership plan, and in 1993 reportedly purchased 17% of the firm for $730 million from 72 Cargills and MacMillans. It used that stake to begin the employee stock plan. The company's [[board of directors]] was reorganized to reduce the number of relatives to six, alongside six independents and five managers.<ref name="Forbes1102"/>

[[Ernest Micek]] took over as chief executive in August 1995.<ref>{{Cite book |last1=Shurtleff |first1=William |last2=Aoyagi |first2=Akiko |title=History of ADM (Archer Daniels Midland Co.) and the Andreas Family's Work with Soybeans and Soyfoods (1884-2020): Extensively Annotated Bibliography and Sourcebook |publisher=Soyinfo Center |year=2020 |isbn=978-1-948436-23-6 |location=Lafayette, CA |pages=699 |language=en}}</ref> Cargill underwent turmoil in the following years; its financial unit lost hundreds of millions of dollars in 1998 when Russia defaulted on debt and developing countries began to have financial issues. The commodities and ingredients business, which was 75% of Cargill's total revenue, suffered from the [[1997 Asian Financial Crisis]].<ref name="Forbes1102"/> Revenues fell by double-digit percentages for two years in a row, from $55.7 billion in 1997 to $51.4 billion in 1998 and $45.7 billion in 1999, while net income fell from $814 million in 1997 to $468 million in 1998 and $220 million in 1999.<ref name="FT022604"/> By 1999, the company had $4 billion in debt. After a reduction in previously strong [[bond credit rating]], Micek announced he would step down a year early.<ref name="Forbes1102"/>