Why Trade Matters
Trade helps us feed a hungry world
Cargill’s business is feeding a hungry world. That means that food must be able to move to where it is needed, when it is needed—across countries, continents and oceans.
To accomplish this, we need access to an unrestricted, open trading system that connects all members of the world community. Using that system of trade, we can provide communities around the world with a dependable, affordable and nutritious food supply.
Trade provides access to technology and resources
But trade isn’t just about food. Open trade also allows nations to reach across borders to obtain other goods, services, new technologies and other resources they need to prosper. Most often these are resources which are not available or feasible to cultivate, manufacture or otherwise obtain internally. They may range from raw materials to factory machinery to finished products and other resources.
By obtaining these necessary resources through trade, companies can keep workers employed and consumers supplied with the items they need and want.
Trade benefits consumers and workers.
Trade gives consumers access to products that contain a wide range of ingredients grown around the world. And it creates jobs even in places far from where specific crops are grown. Consider the following examples.
By acquiring resources through open trade, countries can invigorate their economies and create new opportunities that would not otherwise be available. That’s because robust trade stimulates free enterprise and competition, which can help create jobs and economic growth, generate new export opportunities and improve the quality of life.
Trade lifts people out of poverty
These benefits are especially critical to developing nations, where the growth and economic development generated by trade have the potential to lift large portions of the population out of poverty. When trade connects developing nations to world markets, it also creates new job opportunities all along the supply chain.
As employment increases and incomes rise, trade helps more people in these nations advance beyond mere subsistence and enter the consumer class, where they will generate new demand for goods that further bolsters the robustness of trade. This is particularly true in agriculture. According to USDA, developing countries are projected to account for more than 80 percent of the increase in global demand for meat, grains and oilseeds to 2026.
Trade supports our entire supply chain
In our case, these additional benefits of trade extend to people all along our supply chain—including Cargill employees, our partners, customers, consumers and all those who live in the communities where Cargill operates.
And that’s reason enough for Cargill to do what we can to ensure that all of the world’s citizens have the opportunity to share in the benefits of trade.