Miller Magazine Issue 110 / February 2019

44 NEWS MILLER / FEBRUARY 2019 ADM named to Most Admired Company List for 11th consecutive year Moderate rise expected in U.S. winter wheat acreage Archer Daniels Midland Company (ADM) was named one of the world’s most admired companies in the food production industry by Fortune magazine for the 11th year in a row. For 2019, Fortune’s “World’s Most Ad- mired Companies” list ranked companies in 52 major industries on nine criteria—from investment value and quality of management and products, to social respon- sibility and ability to attract talent. A total of 680 com- panies in 30 countries were evaluated this year. “ADM’s presence on this list for more than a decade now is a reflection of the steadfast commitment and service of our 31,000 global colleagues,” said Chair- man and CEO Juan Luciano. “They represent a talen- ted, diverse workforce that is dedicated to delivering excellence every day and passionate about our industry and the communities where they live and work. We are truly honored to be recognized once again as one of the most admired companies in our industry.” For more than a century, the people of ADM have transformed crops into products that serve the vital needs of a growing world. Today, ADM is one of the world’s largest agricultural processors and food ingre- dient providers, with approximately 31,000 employe- es serving customers in more than 170 countries. The company has approximately 500 crop procurement lo- cations, 270 food and feed ingredient manufacturing facilities, 44 innovation centers. American farmers planted 32.5 million acres to wheat last year, of which 24.7 million acres were harvested. This was much less area than in previous years. Given that wheat has been one of the better performing grain markets in the past year, it should not be a big surprise that the trade expects United States winter wheat ac- reage to halt the precipitous declines of recent years. Reuters polled the grain trade for its estimates of what U.S. farmers seeded in the fall and came up with an average of 32.3 million acres, up one million from last year’s trade guess of 31.3 million. The final actual seeded area in 2018 was 32.5 million acres, of which 24.7 million acres were harvested, pro- ducing a crop of 1.18 billion bushels. That is a lot less area than in the past. The seeded area in the first half of this decade was around 40 to 42 million acres, but as the years passed and soybeans and corn provided better returns, wheat plantings suffered. If farmers did indeed add a million seeded acres of winter wheat, it would be the first annual increase since 2013. The overall amount of wheat produced in the U.S. in 2018 was up slightly from the year before because northern farmers increased their area of spring wheat and the yield on that crop was a bit better than the trend line. The USDA forecast in December that stocks of all wheat by the end of the 2018-19 crop year would be 974 million bu., down from about 1.099 billion the year before and a similar amount two years ago.