Cargill Inc. recently reported an 82% slide in fiscal fourth-quarter profit, citing tough trading conditions in beef and soybean processing and an economic and political environment that the agribusiness group has said distorts the pricing of risk.
Cargill’s global meatpacking, grain processing and food business is viewed as an industry bellwether and, like rivals such as Archer Daniels Midland Co. ADM-0.15% and Bunge Ltd. BG+0.48% , it has suffered from dislocated trading and processing conditions as a series of droughts hit global crop supplies.