Vote for ADM in the Corporate Hall of Shame Today!
–Shame on ADM for its role in destroying tropical rainforests for soy and palm plantations;
–Shame on ADM for displacing Indigenous and local communities from their traditional territories and/or small farms to expand their soy and palm plantations;
–Shame on ADM for exacerbating climate change and the world food crisis by promoting the expansion of agrofuels, industrial biofuels, in tropical ecosystems; and
–Shame on ADM for lobbying against voluntary provisions in the U.S. Farm Bill to prove that companies are not using slave labor to harvest their products. (For more info and to sign a petition,click here.)
ADM, Archer Daniels Midland, one of the biggest and most powerful U.S. agribusiness companies likes to believe that it is feeding and fueling the planet. In reality, however, the company is causing widespread social and environmental abuses.
As you know, RAN is campaigning to get ADM to stop destroying rainforests, abusing human rights and exacerbating climate change. ADM is leading the charge for massive soy and palm oil expansion in Southeast Asia and South America. Huge areas of tropical rainforest have to be cleared and burned to make room for monocrop soy and palm oil plantations which will, in turn, be used to create agrofuels. This process — clearing forests to make fuel — is a climate nightmare.
Over its lifecycle, palm-based agrofuels can emit up to ten times more carbon dioxide per gallon than gasoline.
Not only is it a nightmare for the climate, it’s a nightmare for the communities on the frontlines of ADM’s soy and palm oil expansion. Indigenous and local communities are displaced off their land to make way for plantations. In one province in Indonesia alone, the UN predicts that up to 5 million people will be displaced by palm oil plantations for agrofuels.
But ADM doesn’t care. The company just wants to make a quick profit regardless of the environmental or social consequences of its actions. In March, we attended the Wall Street Journal’s Eco:nomics conference where we gave ADM’s CEO an opportunity to sign a pledge to stop destroying rainforests for agrofuels. She didn’t sign it. Shame on ADM! The only way ADM will care is if we speak out now!