We helped create a business relationship that went well beyond the exchange of business cards.

Bringing the people who grow crops together with the people who need them is a fundamental Cargill skill. Our Signature Growers™ program helps create personal connections between growers and buyers across the sea.

In Japan, for example, a producer of premium-quality eggs for food cooperatives needed corn for chicken feed grown to precise standards. To meet his need for identity-preserved corn, Cargill’s Signature Growers program brought him together with a farmer in Illinois, who now produces corn to the customer’s exact specifications.

The crop is planted and grown under rigorous standards, with the farmer frequently updating his customer on its status. Cargill provides select hybrid seeds and also works to assure that the crop follows identity preservation protocol all the way from planting through shipping to delivery. Cargill is continually there to facilitate the relationship between the two.

An interesting side story of this collaboration is that the farmer and Japanese egg producer have become friends…with the producer even visiting the farm of the Illinois grower. Of course, the real result is a mutually beneficial business relationship. The customer gets the grain he needs to be successful and the farmer is rewarded with premium grain pricing and the satisfaction of knowing where and how his crop is used.