June 17, 2008

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Cargill expands efforts to advance long-term solutions to rural poverty and food security

Awards $13 million in grants to partners CARE and Stanford University

MINNEAPOLIS – Cargill today announced a major expansion in its efforts to increase rural economic development and find long-term solutions to poverty and food security issues.

Cargill, an international leader in food, agricultural and risk management products and services, will donate $10 million over five years to CARE, one of the world’s most respected international humanitarian organizations. The initiative will fund projects designed to help 100,000 men, women and children in rural areas in six nations lift themselves out of poverty.

In addition, Cargill will donate $3 million over five years to Stanford University’s Program on Food Security and the Environment (FSE) where research, teaching and outreach aims to generate innovative solutions to the persistent problems of global hunger and environmental damage from agricultural practices.

“Cargill is committed to being a global leader in corporate citizenship by nourishing people in communities where we do business,” said Greg Page, Cargill chairman and chief executive officer. “We have 83,000 of our employees, and more than 40 percent of our net assets, in developing nations.” Cargill and CARE have partnered for more than 15 years to combat poverty. Since 1992, Cargill has donated $2.5 million to CARE in a global partnership that has benefited farmers and their families in Africa, Latin America and Asia.

The new $10 million initiative will build on that foundation by providing training, skills-development and market access for farmers, as well as educational opportunities for their children. “We, like CARE, believe an investment in small farmers that increases their capacities to lift themselves out of poverty long before a food crisis occurs is the best strategy to help agriculturally dependent communities,” noted Page. Countries targeted for the initiative include India, Brazil, Ghana, Honduras, Guatemala and Cote d’Ivoire.

The Cargill-CARE partnership will focus on achieving predetermined outcomes specific to each country and target area, including:

* A goal of graduating from primary school at least 40,000 at-risk children as a strategy to fight child labor;

* Improving the nutritional status of 28,000 children in areas with high rates of malnutrition;

* Engaging more than 33,000 parents to support and participate in their children’s education and nutritional health;

* Training more than 2,000 teachers and education officials to improve the quality of education for rural children; and

* Training more than 35,000 farmers in techniques to improve agricultural yields and heighten market access.

“We are extremely grateful for Cargill’s gift. Because of its size and long-term nature, we will be able to help 100,000 men, women and children in rural families in a way we simply can not with a one- or two-year commitment,” said Helene Gayle, chief executive officer of CARE. “It is a notable investment in terms of size and focus.”

Similarly, Cargill’s grant to FSE is designed to help foster long-term solutions to issues of food security, food and diet diversification, food subsidies, and food safety; as well as the broader relationships among development, security, and the environment. “This grant represents a renewal and extension of our 25-year-long relationship with Stanford University,” said Greg Page. “FSE is conducting research on some of the most critical issues of our time, including how altering land use practices impacts food security and the environment,” said Page.

“Cargill’s investment will provide critical seed-funding for the innovative solution-based research and teaching going on at FSE,” said Roz Naylor, FSE director and William Wrigley Senior Fellow at Stanford. “It will jump-start a visiting fellows program that will bring to Stanford experts working in key FSE research areas from the United States and abroad, and will help establish an infrastructure to support our research team.”

Cargill contributes more than $40 million a year to charities and community causes in areas of nutrition and health, innovation in education and environmental stewardship in communities where it operates. For more on Cargill’s global citizenship work see the 2007 Corporate Citizenship Review at http://www.cargill.com/about/citizenship/citizenship.htm.