Skip to content
An accompanying ad is being published in the Minnesota Star Tribune, San Francisco Chronicle and other local US newspapers.
View published ad here.

Forbes estimates your net worth at $47 billion, with more individual billionaires than any other  family in the world. Each year this wealth continues to grow, with some of you making as much as $64 million a year in dividends alone. 

But this windfall comes at a price for everyone else. 

Your company’s reputation for the destruction of nature, human rights abuses, and corporate malfeasance is notorious. Forests across the world continue to fall to make way for your  company’s expansion; children toil on plantations to supply you with cocoa beans, Indigenous communities are forced from their territories, and hundreds of thousands of Brazilians this year alone have been forced out of their homes, ravaged by floods caused and exacerbated by the destruction of the land for soy plantations. 

Cargill has repeatedly committed to addressing human rights abuses and the destruction of nature in its supply chain but has not followed through on these commitments. In addition  to sourcing from plantations that destroy South America’s forests to produce grain, Cargill is  promoting the construction of a mega railway that would destroy forests through the heart of  the Brazilian Amazon. The project, called the Ferrogrão, is proposed to be constructed  through over 600 miles of Amazon rainforest between the Xingu and Tapajós rivers, and  would result in an estimated half a million acres of deforestation. This project would supply  animal feed to China and Europe and affect at least six Indigenous lands, 17 conservation  units, and three isolated tribes without their consent or consultation. 

Your company’s support for the dangerous and destructive Ferrogrão railway in the Brazilian  Amazon is a clear example of this contradiction: this mega-project for grain export favors  deforestation and deepens violations against Indigenous peoples and local communities. 

For years, you have delegated the management of your company to its executives. You have  trusted them to conduct business ethically and to follow through on their commitments. So  far, the company has done neither.

Last November, Cargill committed to ending the destruction of forests and other ecosystems in Brazil, Uruguay, and Argentina by 2025. We hope that this is more than just another empty  promise. 

It’s time for you to engage–to step in, step up, and show leadership. It is time to fulfill and  expand this commitment and eliminate human rights abuses and the destruction of nature  throughout Cargill’s entire supply chain. 

Sincerely, 

Stand.earth
AidEnvironment
Amazon Watch
Arteoitava
Articulação dos Povos Indígenas do Brasil (APIB)
Associação Indígena Pariri
Brigada Guardiões da Cafuringa e Brigada Guardiões do Canela de Ema
Ekō
Guardioes da Cafuringa
Instituto Climainfo
Instituto Procomum
Instituto Sociedade, População e Natureza (ISPN)
International Rights Advocates
Mighty Earth
Parede Viva
QueroQuero Cinema
Rainforest Action Network
Rainforest Foundation Norway
Rede Emaranhadas
Resistencia Cultural Upaon Açu- Reocupa