The world of agricultural commodity trading firms has changed over the years, although corporate concentration has long been a defining feature of this sector. The four dominant agricultural trading firms—the ABCDs (ADM, Bunge, Cargill and Louis-Dreyfus)—have a long history dating back to the 1800s and early 1900s. First established as private, family-owned grain merchant companies with specific geographical specialties, these firms have since evolved to be quite complex companies. They buy and sell grain as well as a host of other agricultural and non-agricultural commodities, while they also undertake a range of activities from finance to production to processing and distribution. New entrants into this space have also taken on complex structures and activities in a bid to stay competitive.

Researchers should cite this work as follows:

• Clapp, J., (2025), "CRFA - ABCD and beyond: From grain merchants to agricultural value chain managers", HSSCommons: (DOI: 10.15353/cfs-rcea.v2i2.84)

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1. agri-food value chains
2. grain trade
3. Transnational corporations

Original publication: Clapp, Jennifer. "CRFA - ABCD and beyond: From grain merchants to agricultural value chain managers." Canadian Food Studies / La Revue canadienne des études sur l'alimentation, vol. 2, no. 2, 2015, pp. 126-135. DOI: 10.15353/cfs-rcea.v2i2.84. This material has been re-published in an unmodified form on the Canadian HSS Commons with the permission of Canadian Food Studies / La Revue canadienne des études sur l'alimentation. Copyright © the author(s). Work published in CFS/RCÉA prior to and including Vol. 8, No. 3 (2021) is licensed under the Creative Commons CC BY license. Work published in Vol. 8, No. 4 (2021) and after is licensed under the Creative Commons CC BY-SA license. For details, see creativecommons.org/licenses/.