Archer Daniels Midland

With 275 processing plants worldwide, 22,000 employees, and official sales of more than $20 billion at the end of the millennium, the Archer Daniels Midland Company (ADM) is one of the world’s leading agribusinesses. Headquartered in Decatur, Illinois, the self-styled “Supermarket to the World” processes soybeans, wheat, corn, peanuts, rice, barley, and various oil seeds and converts cocoa into “value-added products” for human and animal consumption. The company is also a world leader in nutraceuticals (vitamins E and C, choline, soy isoflavones, and others) and bioproducts, especially ethanol fuels. It is a thoroughly modern company that grew because of innovation, business prowess, and the close links it forged with government policymakers at home and abroad.