The Archer-Daniels-Midland Company, commonly known as ADM, is an American multinational food processing and commodities trading corporation founded in 1902 and headquartered in Chicago, Illinois.

[10][11][12] A series of acquisitions over the next several years expanded the company's oil processing capabilities and agricultural operations, and a grain division was established in 1927.

[21] In 1965, ADM registered the original patent for textured vegetable protein and began producing the soy flour product at its Decatur East Plant by 1966.

[37] The next year ADM sponsored a major agribusiness show in Havana, where the company signed a $10 million contract with Cuba’s food import agency, Alimport, to deliver rice, cooking oil, and soy.

[39] In February 2007, Woertz was elected chairman of the board at ADM.[40] In 2012, the company sought to acquire strategic holdings to support serving Asian markets through the acquisition of GrainCorp, an Australian grain firm with a network of storage and port facilities in Australia.

[41] On November 28, 2013, the acquisition was blocked by the Australian Treasurer Joe Hockey after Australia's Foreign Investment Review Board failed to reach a consensus recommendation.

[53] In March 2018, ADM restructured its business segments into four units: carbohydrate solutions, nutrition, oilseeds, and origination or ag services.

[55] In September 2021, ADM acquired a 75% stake in four pet food companies for a total of $450 million, including PetDine, Pedigree Ovens, NutraDine, and The Pound Bakery.

[56] Later that year in November, ADM acquired Serbian soy agribusiness Sojaprotein,[57] and completed its acquisition of Deerland Probiotics & Enzymes.

In addition, ADM agreed to eliminate more than 60,000 tons of emissions of carbon monoxide, particulate matter, volatile organic compounds, and other pollutants from 42 plants in 17 states, at a cost of hundreds of millions of dollars.

[63] The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, the economic stimulus package developed in response to the Great Recession, included a $3.4 billion allocation for the Department of Energy's office of fossil fuel, the majority of which was slated for the Industrial Carbon Capture and Storage (ICCS) program.

[74] The project involved injecting carbon captured at an ADM biofuel facility into Mount Simon Sandstone, a saline reservoir.

[79] In August 2021, ADM announced that its US flour milling operations had achieved net carbon neutral status, in part due to the Decatur capture and storage project.

[82] The agreement enabled ADM to inject liquified carbon dioxide into "pore space" 1.25 miles under land owned by the city of Decatur.

[86] In September 2022, PepsiCo and ADM established a partnership on regenerative agriculture projects that would increase the practice across their North American supply chains and help the companies meet carbon reduction goals.

[87] In July 2023, ADM launched an expansion of the program, which offers producers financial incentives and technical support to implement regenerative practices.

In January 2008, ADM signed a three-year memorandum of understanding with Daimler AG and Bayer CropScience to explore the use of jatropha as a feedstock for biofuel.

[95] The first quarter of 2020, during the COVID-19 pandemic, saw the operating profit of Ag Services and Oilseeds (ADM's biggest revenue segment) rise $422 million, or 1.2%.

[102] A noteworthy case of transfer mispricing came to light in 2011 in Argentina involving the world's four largest grain traders: ADM, Bunge, Cargill and LDC.

As a result of the investigation, it was alleged that the companies had submitted false declarations of sales and routed profits through tax havens or through their headquarters.

In some cases, they were said to have used phantom firms to buy grain and had inflated costs in Argentina in order to reduce the recorded profits earned in the country.

To date, the Argentinian tax authorities have not replied to the Swiss NGO Public Eye’s request regarding the current state of the case.

"[107] On December 20, 2013, the SEC announced that it had charged ADM for failing to prevent illicit payments (bribes) made by its foreign subsidiaries to Ukrainian government officials in violation of the FCPA.

[110][111] In 2021, an investigation by the Washington Post found that ADM had sold land to incoming Secretary of Agriculture Sonny Perdue in 2017 at a fraction of its estimated value.

According to the Post, ADM "sold the land at a small fraction of its estimated value just as it stood to benefit from a friendly secretary of agriculture.

[115] In March 2024, FBI agents delivered grand jury subpoenas to current and former employees of ADM, authorized by officials at the U.S. attorney's Manhattan office.