ARCHER-DANIELS-MIDLAND
“Rats in the Grain”

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Then God said, "Behold I have given you every plant yielding seed that is on the surface of the earth, and every tree which has fruit yielding seed; it shall be food for you; and to every beast of the earth and to every bird of the sky and to every thing that moves on the earth which has life, I have given every green plant for food"; and it was so.

And God saw all that He had made, and behold it was very good....

- Old Testament, Genesis 1:29-30

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From PBS Frontline:

Perhaps America's champion all-time campaign contributor is Dwayne Orville Andreas. Although virtually unknown to most Americans, since the 1970s, leading politicians of both parties have been well acquainted with Andreas, his company, and his money.

The 77-year-old Andreas rose from modest circumstances to become chairman of the Archer-Daniels-Midland Company, which is based in Decatur, Illinois, and is the largest U.S. processor of farm commodities such as wheat, corn and soybeans.

Born to a Mennonite farm family outside Worthington, Minnesota, Andreas grew up mostly in Iowa and attended Wheaton College in Illinois. But after getting married in his sophomore year, the diminutive (height: 5-foot-4) Andreas dropped out and joined a small, family-owned food-processing firm in Cedar Rapids, Iowa.

The family eventually sold out its business, and Andreas wound up at A.D.M., becoming its chief executive in 1971. He has converted a company once known primarily as a soybean mill into a diversified multinational powerhouse with more than $12 billion in annual sales. Former U.S. Ambassador Robert Strauss, who is a close friend of Andreas and an A.D.M board member, told FRONTLINE: "He's a very able businessman, probably the ablest one I've ever known."

While Andreas has been building A.D.M. into the self-proclaimed "Supermarket to the World," -- a phrase known to millions of Americans who watch A.D.M.-sponsored news and public affairs on both PBS and the commercial networks -- he has shown an extraordinary knack for cultivating powerful politicans. Among his past close friends and golfing partners: Republican presidential nominee Thomas Dewey and House Speaker Thomas (Tip) O'Neill, a Democrat. He was particularly close to Vice-President Hubert Humphrey, who was godfather to Andreas's son, Michael. Andreas has often been photographed with world leaders, including Mikhail Gorbachev. A statue of Ronald Reagan occupies a place of honor at A.D.M.'s headquarters.

As far back as Watergate, Andreas' political giving has thrust him into controversy. A Watergate-era investigation led to criminal charges that he had illegally contributed $100,000 to Humphrey's 1968 campaign for President, but Andreas was acquitted. And his $25,000 cash donation to President Nixon's re-election bid in 1972 became a focus of Watergate inquiry into abuses surrounding unreported campaign money.

According to an investigative memo uncovered in 1992 that quotes President Nixon's personal secretary Rosemary Woods, Andreas delivered $100,000 in $100 bills to the White House shortly before the 1972 election. Woods stored the money in a basement safe for about a year, when the President had her return the cash to Andreas.

Andreas, who earns a $3.6 million salary, has continued donating generously to many Democratic and Republican candidates -- "tithing," he calls it. Over the years he has given money to Senator Bob Dole, President Clinton, President Bush, President Carter, Michael Dukakis, Jack Kemp, and Jesse Jackson, among others. Between 1981 and 1994, Senator Dole and his political foundations collected $178,000 in contributions from Andreas, members of Andreas' family and A.D.M. executives, according to Common Cause, a nonpartisan watchdog group in Washington. Andreas and A.D.M. have also given more than $2 million in "soft money" to the Democratic and Republican parties since 1991, according to federal records.

Meanwhile, Dole has become known to some as "Senator Ethanol" because of his longtime, staunch support of federal tax subsidies for corn-based ethanol, a gasoline additive. A.D.M., which produces sixty percent of all U.S. ethanol, has been a major beneficiary. Congressional fans of ethanol, many of them, like Dole, representatives of corn states, say it has helped ease US dependence on foreign oil. Others are not convinced. Recently New Jersey Senator Bill Bradley told The Boston Globe, "This billion-dollar tax break is nothing more than a gift to a single, politically connected industry." Andreas' critics link federal subsidies -- including sugar price supports and the ethanol tax break -- to the influence that they say his political dollars have bought him among elected officials. The sugar subsidy has the effect of raising the price of a corn syrup sweetner, another important A.D.M. product. In his stock reply to such charges, Andreas says, "We do not talk to any government official about our business."

Currently , however, the company has bigger problems than its reputation for political giving. Federal prosecutors are investigating allegations that the company has conspired to fix commodity prices.

A.D.M. has denied any wrongdoing.

www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/president/players/andreas.html

March 29, 2002

Farmers planting more biotech crops this year

Associated Press

WASHINGTON - American farmers will plant more genetically engineered crops this year, including one-third of the corn on U.S. soil, shrugging off international resistance to biotech food.

The farmers are expected to grow more than 79 million acres of genetically engineered corn and soybeans, the nation's two most widely planted commodities, a 13 percent increase from last year, according to an Agriculture Department survey.

The gene-altered crops require fewer chemicals. making them easier and cheaper to grow. The crops are engineered to produce their own pesticide or to be resistant to a popular weedkiller.

"Farming has become so competitive, so small margin, that if we can find something that works economically and environmentally we'll jump on it," said Minnesota farmer Gerald Tumbleson, who grows biotech corn and soybeans.

About 74 percent of this year's soy crop, or 54 million acres, will be genetically engineered, compared with 68 percent last year and 54 percent in 2000, the department said. In Indiana, Nebraska, South Dakota and Kansas, 80 percent or more of this year's soybean crop is expected to be biotech.

Soy is a critical ingredient for a wide variety of foods and, like corn, also is used for animal feed.

Some 32 percent of the corn crop, or 25.3 million acres, will be of biotech varieties, compared with 26 percent in 2001 and 25 percent the year before.

Strong consumer resistance to agricultural biotechnology has arisen in Europe and Japan, but most U.S.-grown corn and soy is used domestically.

"The farmer looks at it strictly from profitability," said commodities, analyst Don Roose. "They're not shying away from it."

The biotech soybeans contain a bacterium gene that makes them immune to Roundup herbicide. In some cases, farmers can get by with treating their fields just once a year to keep away yield-robbing weeds.

In addition, about 10.5 million acres of cotton, or 71 percent of this year's cotton crop, will be bioengineered. Last year, 69 percent of the cotton was gene-altered.

The popular varieties of biotech cotton are either Roundup-immune or else produce their own pesticide. Most of the genetically engineered corn that farmers plant was designed to kill a common insect pest, the European corn borer.

The biotechnology industry was set back in 1999 by research raising fears, since alleviated, that the biotech corn was killing off Monarch butterflies. The following year, the industry was embarrassed when a type of gene-altered corn was found in the food supply without being approved for human consumption.

Yesterday's report "shows the continued high confidence that U.S. farmers have placed in seeds improved through biotechnology," said Michael Phillips of the Biotechnology Industry Organization.

Other biotech crops, such as potatoes and tomatoes, have met resistance from farmers and the food industry, and wheat growers are nervous about the pending introduction of Roundup-resistant wheat. Wheat is far more dependent on export markets than other crops.

"That is a huge factor, the extent to which a crop is going to be exported," said Jane Rissler, a biotech critic with the Union of Concerned Scientists.

March 29, 2002

Company to release its rice research
for humanitarian use

Catbird: Pardon me while I laugh! (...or cry)

Associated Press

WASHINGTON - A biotechnology company agreed yesterday to make public its data on the rice genome so that scientists can use the research to develop improved crops for the world's poor.

Syngentia AG, a Swiss firm, said academic institutions, governments and nonprofit organizations will be allowed to use the data as they wish, but competing companies would have to pay for rights to commercialize their uses of the material.

Rice is a staple for half the world's population. Its genetic model is relatively simple and so similar to other grains that scientists can use the rice map to manipulate genetic traits in a variety of crops.

Syngenta made the agreement with Science magazine, which will publish the research next week.

"This is a balance between humanitarian goals and commercial goals," said Steven Briggs, president of Syngenta's San Diego-based Torrey Mesa Research Institute.

Science ordinarily requires that scientists place such data in an international repository, known as Genbank, but Syngenta balked at the demand because the firm wants to prevent other companies from using the material commercially.

Science editor Donald Kennedy said the Syngenta research was valuable enough to warrant making an exception to its policy.

The data will make it easier for scientists to add nutrients to crops or increase resistance to drought and pests through both conventional breeding techniques and genetic engineering.

The BGH Scandals--The Incredible Story of Jane Akre & Steve Wilson (Part 1)

PR Watch, Volume 7, No. 4, Fourth Quarter 2000

Flack Attack

In our Second Quarter 1998 issue, PR Watch wrote about TV investigative reporters Jane Akre and Steve Wilson, who were fired after refusing to go along with misleading alterations to their story about Monsanto's genetically-engineered bovine growth hormone.

Akre and Wilson recently won a landmark whistleblower lawsuit against the station that fired them, yet their former network continues its legal efforts to reverse the ruling and crush them financially. In this issue, we are honored to publish Jane Akre's firsthand account of her experiences standing up to corporate and media powers that have tried to silence them.

Journalists everywhere should take a close look at this case and its implications. If the Fox network and Monsanto get away with destroying the careers of these two seasoned reporters, the same thing can happen to anyone who tries to stand up for a story that they believe in. With few resources other than the courage of their convictions, Akre and Wilson have struggled to place issues before the public that otherwise would remain hidden from view. In addition to their battle in the courts, they have used the skills they honed in the newsroom to fight back in the court of public opinion.

They have created a website ( www.foxBGHsuit.com ) that includes a downloadable video of their suppressed news story, plus court documents and other facts about their case. We encourage you to visit their website and, in light of their continuing financial struggles, to consider making a donation to their cause.

We hope that after reading their story, you will also share it with others and help get the word out. The public needs to inform itself and take action when the news media fails to do its job properly, and this is an egregious example....

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Don't Ask, Don't Tell: The Story We Weren't Allowed to Air

by Jane Akre

The truth is, only Monsanto really knows how many U.S. farmers are presently using their recombinant bovine growth hormone (rBGH). The company persistently refuses to release sales figures but claims it has now become the largest-selling dairy animal drug in America. The chemical giant's secretive operations were part of what made the story of rBGH such a compelling one for me to explore as an investigative reporter.

In late 1996, my husband Steve Wilson and I were hired as investigative journalists for the Fox-owned television station in Tampa, Florida. Looking for projects to pursue, I soon learned that millions of Americans and their children who consume milk from rBGH-treated cows have unwittingly become participants in what amounts to a giant public health experiment.

Despite promises from grocers that they would not buy rBGH milk "until it gains widespread acceptance," I discovered and carefully documented how those promises were quietly broken immediately after they were made three years earlier. I also learned that health concerns raised by scientists around the world have never been settled, and indeed, the product has been outlawed or shunned in every other major industrialized country on the planet.

Clearly, there is not "widespread acceptance" of rBGH, not in 1996 when I began my research, and not today. By any standard, it was a solid story, but little did I know that it would become the last story of my 19-year broadcast journalism career and the heart of a dispute that could nearly destroy me and my family.

Even if you ask directly, "How much of your milk comes from cows injected with an artificial growth hormone?" We discovered that you are still likely to be misled or lied to today.

Steve helped me gather and produce a TV report based on the information we discovered. The investigation began with random visits to seven farms to determine whether and how widely rBGH was being used in Florida. I confirmed its use at every one of the seven farms I visited, and then I discovered what amounted to an ingenious public relations campaign that seemed to have succeeded in keeping consumers in the dark....

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Who Is the Dairy Coalition?

by Sheldon Rampton and John Stauber

Created by the PR and lobby firm of Capitoline/ MS&L with funding from the National Milk Producers Federation, the Dairy Coalition is composed of business, government and non-profit groups, including university researchers funded by Monsanto as well as other carefully selected "third party" experts.

Dick Weiss, director of the Dairy Coalition, now works with former Monsanto rBGH lobbyist Carol Tucker Foreman at the Consumer Federation of America.

Dairy Coalition participants include:

The International Food Information Council, which calls itself "a non-profit organization that disseminates sound, scientific information on food safety and nutrition to journalists, health professionals, government officials and consumers."

In reality, IFIC is a public relations arm of the food and beverage industries, which provide the bulk of its funding. Its staff members hail from industry groups such as the Sugar Association and the National Soft Drink Association, and it has repeatedly led the defense for controversial food additives including monosodium glutamate, aspartame (Nutrasweet), food dyes, and olestra.

The American Farm Bureau Federation, the powerful conservative lobby behind the movement to pass food disparagement laws like the one under which Oprah Winfrey was sued in Texas.

The American Dietetic Association, a national association of registered dietitians that works closely with IFIC and hauls in large sums of money advocating for the food industry. Its stated mission is to "improve the health of the public," but with 15 percent of its budget--more than $3 million--coming from food companies and trade groups, it has learned not to bite the hand that feeds it.

"They never criticize the food industry," says Joan Gussow, a former head of the nutrition education program at Teachers College at Columbia University.

The ADA's website even contains a series of "fact sheets" about various food products, sponsored by the same corporations that make them (Monsanto for biotechnology; Procter & Gamble for olestra; Ajinomoto for MSG; the National Association of Margarine Manufacturers for fats and oils).

The National Association of State Departments of Agriculture, representing the top executive of every department of agriculture in all 50 states.

The Grocery Manufacturers of America, whose member companies account for more than $460 billion in sales annually. GMA itself is a lobbying powerhouse in Washington, spending $1.4 million for that purpose in 1998 and currently-funding a multi-million-dollar PR campaign for genetically engineered foods. *

The Food Marketing Institute, a trade association of food retailers and wholesalers, whose grocery store members represent three fourths of grocery sales in the United States.

_________________________________________

PR Watch is a publication of the Center for Media & Democracy 520 University Avenue, Suite 310 Madison, WI 53703 phone: (608) 260-9713 fax: 608-260-9714 email: editor@prwatch.org

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Catbird Note:

I see that some food companies are now labeling their products "NO GMO" (Genetically Modified Organisms). From now on, my motto when shopping for birdseed is going to be:

"JUST SAY NO TO GMO!"

How about YOU?

* * * * *

FOR A CLOSER LOOK AT SOME OF THESE BIOGENETIC BIRDS, AND THEIR NESTS, POINT YOUR FIELD GLASSES DIRECTLY BELOW!

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Ajinomoto Inc. - From Hoover's Online:

"Essence of flavor" is the literal translation of "ajinomoto," which is also a generic term for monosodium glutamate (MSG)and the name of Japan's largest producer of seasonings.

Founded in 1888 to harvest iodine from seaweed, Ajinomoto is a top producer of amino and nucleic acids used in sweeteners, nutritional supplements, and animal feeds. It also makes foodstuffs (edible oils, frozen foods, and Knorr soups in Japan) and beverages.

Ajinomoto created the production technology for NutraSweet. Ajinomoto also markets NutraSweet in Europe.

The company operates in more than 20 countries and has more than 100 manufacturing plants worldwide.

Ajinomoto has been assessed a $6 million fine for price fixing in the US.

* * *

From The Informant, by Kurt Eichenwald: . . .

They started the tour in the upstairs lab, where a handful of tiny flasks were being automatically shaken. .... The irony was that those tiny cells of bacteria were the multimillion dollar heart of this giant operation. They were Archer Daniel Midland'sproprietary biological secret that had allowed the company to break Japan's control of the business. . . .

The group headed out onto the plant floor, then down a metal staircase. . . .

Mimoto, already behind the rest of the group, slowed his pace. He waited until he felt sure that no one was looking. Quickly, he reached into his pocket and pulled out a plastic bag, removing the moist handkerchief inside. He placed the handkerchief on the staircase banister, rubbing it as he walked down the steps. Before anyone noticed, he slipped the handkerchief back into the bag, sealed it, and casually placed it back in his pocket.

Mimoto knew that the multimillion-dollar bacteria used by ADM to produce its lysine was growing everywhere in this plant, even places where it could not be seen. He could only hope that, with the handkerchief, he had successfully stolen a sample of it for Ajinomoto. . . .

* * *

Former Ajinomoto exec charged with price fixing

WASHINGTON, Aug 23, 2001 (Reuters) - A federal grand jury on Thursday indicted a former executive with Japanese food additive maker Ajinomoto Co. Inc. on price-fixing charges, the U.S. Justice Department said.

The indictment, handed down in Dallas, charged that Tamon Tanabe, a former associate general manager, was part of a worldwide conspiracy between 1994 and 1996 to fix the price of nucleotides, a flavor enhancer found in soups, sauces, spices and other foods, the government said.

The charges against Tanabe are part of an "ongoing" antitrust investigation and carry a maximum fine of $350,000 and three years in prison, the department said.

It is likely that the Justice Department has called a temporary halt to the pronouncement of the sentence on the lysine case, until its investigations are over with the flavoring additive case. In the lysine case, Kyowa Hakko Kogyo, which had formed a cartel with Ajinomoto and also pleaded guilty, was sentenced to a fine of US$10 million in October 1999. This leads one to think that there must be some good reason why the Justice Department requested twice for postponement of a sentence to Ajinomoto.

A plea is accepted only if the accused company confesses all about the cartel and makes a vow that it will never do the same thing again. If indeed Ajinomoto did form a flavoring additive cartel, the company may be punished severely as a malicious criminal that deceived the Justice Department. Its fine on the lysine cartel will be made much higher, followed by another heavy fine on the flavoring additive cartel and possibly an imprisonment of those who played significant roles.

Based on a thorough investigation that it has conducted on its own, Ajinomoto asserts that no cartel had been formed as far as flavoring additives are concerned and that the company plans to respond to the civil actions taken against it. Ajinomoto says that neither the headquarters in Japan nor the U.S. subsidiary has been investigated by the Justice Department and that the company is more than willing to cooperate to do away with the cartel suspicion, should an investigation request be made.

Even if this may be the fact, Ajinomoto's U.S. business will continue to be in the gray zone until the final sentence has been pronounced.

* * *

From The Informant, by Kurt Eichenwald: . . .

The large gray van, its windows tinted to block the glances of the curious, pulled away from the Decatur airport, heading toward Route 105.

Inside, four foreign visitors watched as images of the modest town came into view. ... The vast fields of corn that could be seen from the air were no longer visible, replaced instead by an entanglement of industrial plants and office buildings. . . .

In the last few months alone, this road had been traveled by Mikhail Gorbachev, the former Soviet leader, and by Dan Quayle, the American vice president. Those men, like leaders before them, had been drawn to this out-of-the-way place in the center of American largely by one company and often by one man: Archer Daniels Midland and its influential chairman, Dwayne Andreas.

Few Americans were familiar with who Andreas was or what he did. But among the world's moneyed and powerful, he and his grain processing company were known well. In Washington, anyone who mattered was acquainted with Andreas-or more likely, with his money.

For decades, he had been one of the country's foremost political contributors, heaping cash almost indiscriminately on Democrats and Republicans-this year alone, Andreas money would be used by both George Bush and Bill Clinton in their battle for the presidency....

The foreign visitors traveling to ADM on this day hoped for an opportunity to meet Andreas....

Hirokazu Ikeda stepped down from the enormous vehicle, trailed closely by Kanji Mimoto, both senior executives from Ajinomoto Inc., a giant Japanese competitor of ADM. Two other Ajinomoto executives followed...

Shading their eyes from the morning sun, the men headed into the building's lobby and introduced themselves to a receptionist. She placed a call, and within seconds a young, energetic man came bounding down a hallway toward them. It was Mark Whitacre, the thirty-four-year-old president of ADM's newest unit, the Bioproducts Division....

The men chatted about their golf games as Whitacre led them to the executive meeting room, where they found their places around a conference table....

As everyone settled in, Whitacre walked to a wall phone and dialed 5505-the extension for Jim Randall, the president of ADM.

"Jim, our guests are here," Whitacre said....

Randall walked into the room a few minutes later. ... Instantly he took control of the meeting and the conversation, describing how ADM was transforming itself into a new company.

Over slightly less that a century, ADM had grown into a global giant, processing grains and other farm staples into oils, flours, and fibers. Its products were found in everything from Nabisco saltines to Hellmann's mayonnaise., from Jell-O pudding to StarKist tuna.

Soft drinks were loaded with ADM sweeteners and detergents with ADM additives.

Americans were raised on ADM. Babies drinking soy formulas were downing the company's wares, as toddlers, they got their daily dose of ADM from Gerber cereals. The health-minded consumed its products in yogurt and canola oil; others devoured them in Popsicles and pepperoni.

While most people had never heard of ADM, almost every American home was stuffed with its goods.

ADM called itself "the Supermarket to the World," but in truth it was the place that the giant food companies came to do their grocery shopping.

Now, Randall said, ADM was entering a new era. Beginning three years before, in 1989, ADM had taken a new direction, creating the Bioproducts Division.

No longer would the company just grind and crush food products. Instead, it was veering into biotechnology, feeding dextros from corn to tiny microbes. Over time, those microbes, or "bugs" as they were know, convert the sugar into an amino acid called lysine.

As people in the business liked to say, the bugs ate dextros and crapped lysine.

In animal feed, lysine bulked up chickens and pigs - just the product needed by giant food companies like Tyson and Conagra.

Until ADM came along, the Japanese largely controlled the market, with Ajinomoto the undisputed giant. Start-up costs alone kept out potential competitors-tens of millions of dollars were required just to develop the proprietary, patented microbes need to ferment lysine.

But ADM abounded in cash, it had already invested more than $150 million in the new business. Now, the world's largest lysine plant was in Decatur, ready to produce as much as 113,000 metric tons a year. And running it all was Whitacre, a whiz-kid scientist....

"We're going to be the largest biochem company in the world," Randall said....

The Japanese executives listened skeptically but said little. If ADM could produce that much lysine, it would have to gobble up much of the existing market. Building such a huge business struck them as irrational, foolhardy. ADM would have to keep large portions of the plant idle while waiting either for the market to grow or competitors to leave the business....

As Randally spoke, Whitacre and Wilson did their best not to cringe. For all of Randall's swagger, they knew the most important fact about ADM;s new effort was being left untold.

The company couldn't get the damn plant to work....

Ten minutes into his monologue, Randall pushed himself back from the table.

"That tells you about our plant, in a nutshell," he said. "Now, Mark's going to give you a tour, and we'll see you back here later for lunch." ...

They started the tour in the upstairs lab, where a handful of tiny flasks were being automatically shaken.....

The irony was that those tiny cells of bacteria were the multimillion dollar heart of this giant operation. They were ADM's proprietary biological secret that had allowed the company to break Japan's control of the business....

The group headed out onto the plant floor, then down a metal staircase....

* * *

October 25, 1998

How a few little piggies tried
to rig the market

Observer, London

Four men in a hotel room, Hawaii. Unaware of the camera hidden in the bedroom lamp, they begin to share their most intimate secrets, as they had so many nights before, about pig food.

All right, it's not as gripping as Bill Clinton's description of alternative uses of a cigar, but the FBI's videos of the chiefs of the world's pigfeed industry are weirdly fascinating.

Here is Terry Wilson, a vice-president of Archer Daniels Midland, the US agri-chem giant, in the 1994 Hawaii meeting explaining customer relations philosophy to Japanese and European competitors. 'We are gonna get manipulated by these goddamn buyers. They are not your friend. They are not my friend. All I wanna tell ya again is, let's put the prices on the board, let's all agree that's what we're gonna do and then walk out of here and do it.'

And they did. By carving the globe into four territories and parcelling out market shares, ADM and its competitors kicked up the price of the feed additive lysine from 36p a pound to 64p.

We have the tape of the Hawaii price-fixing confab (and a dozen others recorded in Paris, Tokyo and Mexico City) only because the FBI teamed up with a confessed swindler and self-described psychotic, Dr Mark Whitacre, head of ADM's BioProducts division.

Whitacre recorded 237 meetings in which delegates bickered over the boring details of administrating a billion-dollar conspiracy. The lysine cartel was the brainchild of ADM vice-chairman Michael 'Mick' Andreas. He hoped to replicate a cartel for citric acid which he had three years earlier put together with Hoffmann-LaRoche and BayerAG. Their collusion had successfully jacked up the world price for citric acid by 41 per cent.

In 1992, ADM (turnover, $20 billion a year) neared completion of a lysine plant in Illinois with enough capacity to fatten every pig on the planet - and bankrupt every producer worldwide. Andreas made an offer his Japanese and Europeans competitors couldn't refuse: either agree to fix prices and market shares or ADM would drown the globe in swine food.

When executives of Tokyo's Ajinomoto challenged ADM's ability to do this, Andreas took them on a tour of the enormous US plant. The Japanese came away awed by ADM's technology. They also came away with proprietary microbes which they had stolen by wiping handkerchiefs on machine railings.

On June 27, 1995, a team of 70 G-men raided ADM's Chicago headquarters. The company, along with Ajinomoto, LaRoche and Bayer, was charged with conspiracy to fix prices, a felony. Several executives faced arrest, including Andreas, Wilson and Whitacre.

But ADM had prepared its defenses. The company's chairman (and Mick's dad) Dwayne Andreas, a friend of President Clinton, was known as the single largest contributor to both the Democratic and Republican parties.

Andreas once left an envelope in the Oval Office for Richard Nixon containing $100,000 in cash - which ended up financing the Watergate burglars. By mid-1996, it looked as if Mick Andreas and the company would beat the rap - as it had on charges of fixing the fructose market.

Then, in August, three Asian executives unexpectedly showed up at the US Justice Department with incriminating meeting notes. They signed confessions.

In quick succession, LaRoche, Bayer, Ajinomoto and finally ADM pleaded guilty to fixing the citric acid and lysine markets. So far, the co-conspirators have paid out Dollars 195 million in criminal fines and Dollars 326m in restitution to bilked customers.

Three weeks ago, a Chicago jury found Wilson, Whitacre and Mick Andreas guilty of felony pricefixing. On 7 January, the judge will impose prison terms of up to three years.

And so the story ends, with the bad guys off to jail. Truth, justice and the men with shiny badges win.

But two nagging questions remain.

First, what about Europe? ADM didn't conspire with itself. LaRoche, Bayer and a subsidiary of France's Eridania Beghin-Say joined ADM in illicitly swiping an estimated pounds 200m from European customers over five years.

The schemes were nurtured not just in Hawaii but in Paris and London, too, for the enrichment of Swiss, German and French operators, not just Americans.

On 12 July last year, EC competition authorities raided ADM's offices in Kent to seize price-fixing evidence. But the bold raiders only acted several months after the conspirators had pleaded guilty in US courtrooms. While US authorities charged eight corporate executives with criminal price fixing, not one admitted monopolist was arrested in Europe.

And for good reason: price fixing is not a crime in the UK, nor anywhere in the European community. UK and EC rules lack the teeth of US law, where fines equal twice the monopolists' ill-gotten gains; consumers can sue and collect three times the amount they were overcharged; and corporate officers face jail. Its criminal investigative powers permitted the US Justice Department to bust the ADM trusts.

But the DOJ's self-congratulations in this single case cloud the most troubling question of all: How many fish get away? Are ADM, LaRoche and friends an exceptional pack of industrial rogues - or is price fixing business as usual?

The Wall Street Journal, running to ADM's defence, said the company's only crime was 'bad luck'. Every industry, they argue, 'rationalises' output. ADM was singled out for punishment only because one psycho manager couldn't keep his mouth shut. In fact, Justice Department officials estimate that there are roughly 750 illegal worldwide price-fixing accords in operation. It has the resources to investigate 30. And in one key industry, collusion may be simply too easy and too profitable to resist.

According to Professor John M Conner of Purdue University, who has spent his career tracking the Andreas family, the import of the ADM story lies in the dark side of the biotechnology revolution.

Citric acid, notes Conner, was the first biotech product. Lysine production is another industry born in a test tube. Secret technologies, patented microbes and manufacture limited to a small club of enterprises with billions to invest, make biotech a monopolist's heaven.

Environmentalists have focused on the threat of biotechnology creating a King Kong turnip. The likelier danger is that a few corporate megaliths will hold the world's food supply hostage through a web of cartels.

And after ADM's experience, few will be so incautious as to let the FBI film the pigs feeding at the high-tech trough.

- GregoryPalast@Guardian.co.uk

* * *

From The Buying of the President (1996):

In 1988, 249 individuals each gave at least $100,000, achieving a total of $25 million, to help elect George Bush president. By giving that much, they became members of "Team 100" and not only had personal access to Bush and other members of the Bush administration, but many of them -- from real estate and construction to finance, from manufacturing to agribusiness to oil and gas interests -- received special favors during the Bush presidency....

The many quid pro quo relationships have been well documented by Common Cause magazine and others. The two largest donors were Archer-Daniels-Midland (ADM) and its chairman, Dwayne Andreas, who gave $1,072,000 and Atlantic Richfield (Arco) and its chairman, Lodwrick Cook, who contributed $862,360. Both companies made or saved hundreds of millions of dollars from their well-placed Washington investments....

Archer Daniels Midland touts itself as the "supermarket to the world." This behemoth, based in Decatur, Illinois, has its fingers in nearly every agribusiness pie. ... Its net sales in fiscal year 1994 exceeded $11 billion and its profits topped $1 billion....

The company battled with a spate of bad publicity in the summer of 1995, when the Justice Department, using an ADM informant, made public its undercover investigation into allegations of price-fixing for sweeteners and food additives....

Andreas and ADM, playing it safe, are among the largest contributors to both parties in national political campaigns . . .

In 1994, ADM alone gave approximately $2.5 million to various congressional candidates....

Andreas has befriended virtually every president since Nixon. His generosity to all of them is notorious. His $25,000 check to CREEP wound up in the bank account of one of the Watergate burglars. As a result he was investigated but ultimately cleared, by the Senate Watergate Committee. . . .

One of Andreas's well-known and closest political allies has been Senator Bob Dole. Since 1979, ADM has given Dole's senate and presidential campaigns, as well as his leadership PAC and think tank more than $200,000 in contributions, making ADM Dole's fourth-largest patron. That sum does not include the $275,000 Andreas and ADM have given to the Dole Foundation, the senator's charity for the disabled.

And Andreas didn't forget Elizabeth Dole. When she took over the reins of the Red Cross, the Andreas Foundation donated $500,000....

ADM has also been generous with trips, honoraria, and in-kind contributions. Between January 1983 and March 1995, Dole took thirty-five trips on ADM corporate aircraft, for which ADM was reimbursed $75,283. Newsweek (Apr 1995) reported that Dole reimbursed the company for the equivalent of a first-class fare at "less than 25 percent of the cost of operating a private jet."

During 1993-1994 alone, Dole took an average of a trip a month on ADM aircraft....

THE FLORIDA CONDO - The most intriguing tale of the Dole-Andreas relationship is a Bal Harbour, Florida, oceanfront condominium in the "Sea View" complex that Elizabeth Dole bought from Andreas in 1982.

According to the Wall Street Journal, Elizabeth Dole and her brother John Hanford "paid $150,000 cash for a three-room, ocean-front apartment at the Sea View in a transaction handled by the hotel's management." Dole, however, didn't begin payments on the apartment until seven months after the purchase occurred, and the property was actually valued at $190,000....

The most oft-mentioned return favor to ADM is Dole's advocacy for ethanol. As of May 1995, ADM produced more than 60 percent of the country's ethanol, an alcohol distilled from corn and added to gasoline to produce gasohol. Dole's support of ethanol has been strong and consistent. In November 1989, he held up a steel import bill until his colleagues would agree to extend the ethanol excise tax credit to the year 2000.

An industry analyst estimated that in 1987 alone, ADM would garner $150 million from the federal government's ethanol program. In 1995 the Department of Energy estimated that ADM had the capacity to produce 898 million gallons of ethanol, which would yield the blenders of gasohol using ADM ethanol a maximum $475 million in tax benefits.

Without the subsidy, there would be no market.

But Dole has done much more to help Andreas and ADM. . . . According to the U.S. Dept of Agriculture, ADM has raked in at least $424,541,178 in subsidies -- excluding subsidies for ethanol and corn sweetner -- from the federal government between fiscal years 1985-1995.

Dole is a senior member of the Senate Agriculture Committee, through which these programs must pass; he has never opposed them.

Programs such as the Export Enhancement Program and the extremely lucrative grain trade with the former Soviet Union in particular, have received Dole's enthusiastic backing and resulted in ADM pocketing hundreds of millions of dollars in subsidies....

THE EXPORT ENHANCEMENT PROGRAM (EEP) began with the 1985 Farm Bill and was aimed at helping U.S. farmers compete with foreign farmers who received subsidies from their governments. . . .

Between fiscal years 1985 and 1995, ADM received more than $134 million from the program. In several of its annual reports, ADM executives have lauded it as a "glimmer of hope" and a "major benefit" to the company. . . .

In Senate floor speeches, in the form of amendments, and in interviews Dole has endorsed EEP. . . . urging incoming Agriculture Secretary Clayton Yeuter in 1989 to support EEP by saying, "I just think one area that we hope you'll be very aggressive in, that's the Export Enhancement Program". . . .

"We all hope we are going to have an aggressive, knowledgeable person who's going to be our salesman to the world" ... pushing President Bush in 1989 to increase aid to the