Dive Brief:
- Cargill, the largest privately held company in America, said its profit fell 26% in the most recent quarter as the prospect a massive harvest lowered crop prices.
- Revenue for the grain trader fell 2% to $33.3 billion in the most recent quarter, as commodity futures plummeted amid expectations of a record corn and soybean harvest.
- Cargill's earnings report comes a week after rival grain trader Louis Dreyfus also blamed falling crop prices for disappointing earnings.
Dive Insight:
One surprise in Cargill's earnings report is the news that the porcine epidemic diarrhea virus, which has killed some 8 million pigs across the U.S., did not hurt operations as badly as had been anticipated.
Cargill, which is the nation's fourth-largest pork producer, said hog producers increased the weight of their animals to offset the effects of the reduced headcount as animals died.