Rich Torres, a senior executive at Cargill, spoke with us regarding the state of agriculture globally, nationally, and here in Minnesota.
Rich Torres, a senior executive at Cargill, spoke with us regarding the state of agriculture globally, nationally, and here in Minnesota. Cargill is a 150 year old, privately held, fortune 500 company. It consists of 155,000 employees and 2,000 facilities across 70 countries. The company includes four key business segments: food, agriculture, financial, and industrial. One of their main objectives is to help farmers manage their income as much as possible.
Torres then shared the statistic that those in the upper/middle class spend anywhere from 5-10% of their income on food. Those in the lower class spend around 90%. 1.5 billion people don't have enough food. He believes we should make an effort to move calories around the planet more efficiently. He then left us with a question- what sort of inefficiencies are you going to create when you make decisions in regards to food?