In the last 11 years, Archer Daniels Midland (ADM) has racked up at least $51.9 million in fines for 90 federal- and state-level offenses and violations in the United States. 

The numbers come from data compiled by Violation Tracker, a service of the nonprofit Good Jobs First. The website downloads and aggregates official government data on violations of federal or state law cited by agencies, such as the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA). 

ADM’s 90 violations from Jan. 1, 2014, to Dec. 17, 2024, span six primary offense groups: safety, environmental, competition, consumer protection, financial and employment. 

Among these cases are an explosion where eight employees were injured, a lack of response plans after multiple oil spills and violations of labor laws. 

The agriculture giant is a global food processing company, headquartered in Chicago and with one of its region offices in Decatur, which used to be its headquarters. It has operations across six continents and has 182 processing plants and 278 procurement centers in North America alone, according to its website. 

The company’s 327 global processing plants turn crops such as grains, cereals and soybeans into the products used in food and beverages consumed globally. The company also owns at least 294 subsidiaries across different industries, Fintel reported in 2021. It generated nearly $94 billion in revenue in 2023.

ADM Spokesperson Jackie Anderson refused to comment on questions about the company’s violations. 

Safety offenses are most common, company headquarters faced series of accidents

Over the last 10 years, workplace safety-related offenses accounted for: 

• 61 offenses that cost the company $1,168,505
• 67.8% of overall violations
• 2.3% of total fines from overall violations

Notably, the ADM regional headquarters has experienced a series of safety-related offenses in the past year. 

OSHA is investigating an explosion that injured eight employees in September last year at Archer Daniels Midland’s East plant in Decatur, where ADM had been headquartered for years. The investigation is ongoing, but the agency released some findings in April. 

The agency found four serious safety violations that may have played a major role in the explosion. The violations cost the company $12,676 each, totaling more than $50,000. 

A few months prior to that explosion, three employees were injured in a separate explosion at the facility. OSHA fined ADM $324,796 for the incident, and the company contested the fine last October. 

One of the injured workers, Antonio McElrath, has since filed a lawsuit against ADM for significant injuries from the explosion. According to the complaint filed in county court this October, McElrath alleges ADM’s actions leading up to the explosion “displayed actual intent to harm its employees.”

Investigate Midwest reported ADM’s system to prevent explosions in the Decatur plant hadn’t received maintenance since 2016. The lawsuit stated the amount of corn germ dust, which is a combustible material, reached unsafe levels in the area of the plant that exploded — and McElrath was not informed of the dust buildup. 

McElrath suffered third-degree burns to his face, head and body, leaving him disfigured, according to the lawsuit. He was placed in a medically induced coma for three weeks after the explosion. His lawyer said he is unable to work and is still receiving medical care. 

Outside of the Decatur facility, other ADM locations and companies have also been investigated for safety issues. 

The ADM facility in Fremont, Nebraska was fined $41,072 in January 2023 after an OSHA investigation found four serious safety offenses. 

Various subsidiaries of the company also faced safety-related fines. 

ADM Animal Nutrition in Des Moines, Iowa was fined nearly $18,885 last September for a workplace safety or health violation. Eatem Corporation, owned by ADM, was fined $12,675 in 2017 after an employee’s right arm was mangled by an emulsifying machine. 

Ed Marshall, the area director of OSHA’s Peoria area office, said he was unable to comment specifically on ADM and its practices because of ongoing investigations. Yet he stressed the importance of compliance with worker safety regulations. 

“If you get into larger corporations, they may have a higher risk of repeated violations simply because of the volume of workers and the types of tasks they have,” Marshall said in an interview. “But at the same time, they have more means to disseminate information and communicate those hazards across the workforce.” 

He said the agency expects all employers to comply with the OSHA Act regardless of size and provide safe and healthy workplaces. 

“Any time that we get to a point that there’s a repeat citation, or even one of the higher classifications, it indicates that there’s a higher risk of employee exposure; there’s a higher risk of employee injury due to a workplace incident,” he said.

Part of ADM’s operations include grain handling. Marshall said this is a high-hazard industry, as employees can be exposed to numerous serious and life-threatening hazards — fire and explosions, suffocation from engulfment, entrapment in grain bins, falls from heights and crushing injuries — because of the amount of equipment used. 

In April 2023, ADM Decatur employee Robert Dautel was crushed while inside a locomotive and killed. OSHA fined the company $15,625 for the incident, which contested the fine the following October. 

Marshall said he worked for more than 11 years as a field inspector and conducted numerous fatal workplace investigations. Now, as area director, he communicates with family members through the course of an investigation about the loss of their loved one in a workplace incident. He said each case is deeply personal to him. 

“Each one of those investigations resulted in somebody that did not go home to their loved ones that day,” he said. “That’s something that shouldn’t occur. 

“We recognize the impact that each one of those tragic losses has, not only in their family but the co-workers that they work with, the communities that they’re from. Each one of those incidents reaffirms OSHA’s commitment to worker safety and health.” 

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, there were 5,486 fatal work injuries recorded in 2022. That’s one death every 96 minutes. 

Marshall said if an employee feels their workplace conditions are unsafe or unhealthy, they should bring the conditions to their employer’s attention or file a complaint with OSHA. He said employers are prohibited from retaliating against an employee for exercising their right to express unsafe conditions or file a safety complaint with the agency. 

State, federal cases raised air quality concerns

Over the last decade, environment-related offenses accounted for: 

• 21 offenses that cost the company $4,028,659
• 23.3% of overall violations
• 7.8% of total fines from overall violations

For nearly three years, an ADM corn processing plant in Columbus, Nebraska has had serious, unaddressed high-priority violations of the Clean Air Act, according to the Environmental Protection Agency’s Enforcement and Compliance History Online (ECHO) records. 

Since July 2021, records indicate unsafe levels of volatile organic compounds and sulfur dioxide in the air. 

The EPA classified the violation as a high-priority violation, which “requires additional scrutiny to ensure officials respond to the violations in an appropriate manner.” Yet the violations have been in an “unaddressed state” for nearly three years. 

The plant’s violations have also raised several environmental justice concerns, EPA records state. In the Census block group the facility is located in, where 41.27% of the population is people of color and 25.25% of people are low-income, the EPA also found the census block group was in the 91st percentile for air toxic cancer risk. 

Several environmental violations at other locations in recent years have resulted in fines above $50,000. 

Last year, the Indiana Department of Environmental Management fined ADM $53,600 for air pollution at the company’s location in Frankfort, Indiana. The Georgia Environmental Protection Division fined the company $58,428 in 2022 for high emissions of hexane per ton of soybeans and cotton seeds under the state’s Air Quality Act. 

After the company was found by the EPA to be lacking facility response plans for oil spills at five different facilities, a violation of the federal Clean Water Act, it settled for $430,000 in 2014. 

Price-fixing lawsuit settled for $45 million

In 2019, a group of six peanut farmers accused Golden Peanut Co., a subsidiary of ADM, of conspiring with other major peanut manufacturers to depress the prices paid to the farmers. ADM’s peanut shelling company paid out the $45 million to settle with the farmers two years later. The fine accounts for 87% of all fines the company has received in the past 10 years. 

The six peanut farmers represented a class of people or entities who sold raw, harvested peanuts to Golden Peanut, Birdsong Peanuts or Olam Peanut Shelling Company from 2014 to 2019. 

From 2011 to 2013, the peanut farmers said the peanut industry experienced weather-related adversities that made growing peanuts more difficult and expensive. Despite the supply disruptions, the prices Golden Peanut and the other peanut manufacturers were paying the farmers remained the same. 

In their complaint, the farmers claimed the companies used their control over the peanut shelling industry to keep the prices they paid peanut farmers low. 

All three of the defendants settled with the farmers for millions of dollars instead of going to court. 

In December 2013, the company was also fined $36 million and $17.8 million for two violations of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act after the company admitted it had bribed Ukrainian officials for financial benefits. These numbers are not included in the grand totals. 

ADM faced over $1 million in financial offenses regarding supervision, reporting requirements

In the past decade, financial-related offenses accounted for: 

• Three offenses costing the company $1,150,000
• 3.3% of overall violations
• 2.2% of total fines from overall violations

On the brokerage firm ADM Investor Services Inc.’s website, it states, “Build premiere relationships, act with integrity, exceed expectations.” The company prides itself on providing clients with insightful market information and exceptional customer service. 

But in 2022, the Commodity Futures Trade Commission charged the firm $500,000 after the company’s lack of proper supervision over its accounts allowed employees to manipulate trades to benefit themselves and their preferred customers for several years, according to a press release from the commission, where the full report can be downloaded. 

The brokerage firm, which is headquartered in Chicago, is owned by ADM. The company acts as a bridge between buyers and sellers of stocks and trades by advising their clients as they navigate through financial deals. 

An order from the trade commission reports that, from at least 2016 to 2019, the firm failed to detect and deter its employees from continuously violating regulations. 

Because of the company’s lackluster supervision over its employees, brokers would routinely execute “improper or fictitious trade transfer requests” in which they would transfer winning trades to preferred customers or certain accounts they managed while transferring losing trades to other accounts they managed. 

A customer notified the brokerage firm of the problem in 2018. The company launched an internal investigation, identified the fraud and even developed a tool to make trade transfer requests more secure. Yet according to the report, brokers were still able to make improper or fraudulent trade transfers because the firm failed to address the problem promptly. 

The trade commission also fined the company $250,000 in 2019 for violations of the Commodity Exchange Act due to a lack of proper supervision and $400,000 in 2015 for violations of reporting requirements under commission regulations. 

Employment offenses, complaints allege violations of Fair Labor Standards Act

Over the last 10 years, employment-related offenses accounted for: 

• Three offenses costing the company $344,614
• 3.3% of violations
• 0.7% of total fines from violations

In 2014, ADM paid $325,000 to settle with a group of construction employees from ADM’s corn processing facility in Clinton, Iowa, who accused the company of violating the Fair Labor Standards Act and the Iowa Payment Collection Act. 

According to settlement documents, the employees said ADM failed to pay them for the time they spent changing in and out of their uniforms and protective gear – such as hard hats, gloves and boots – and the time they spent walking from the locker room and work location. 

In a complaint, the employees claimed ADM policy required employees to change in and out of their uniforms and protective gear at work. ADM denied enforcing this policy. 

Earlier this year, another ADM employee accused the company of violating the Fair Labor Standards Act for not paying a group of employees an overtime wage for working extra hours. 

Timothy Marret, who has worked for ADM as a fleet deckhand in Indiana since 2021, filed a complaint against the company in February. He’s a part of a class of “Day Rate Workers” who consistently work over 40 hours a week, which means, under the Fair Labor Standards Act, they must receive overtime pay. Yet ADM pays them a flat rate, regardless of how many hours they work. 

According to the complaint, ADM classifies employees like Marret as seamen, a group of employees exempt from the labor act’s overtime pay rule – but none of these employees actually help operate boats or facilitate any form of transportation. As a fleet deckhand, Marret’s primary duties include loading and unloading coal onto boats. 

The U.S. District Court for Northern Illinois is currently hearing this case. 

The Illinois Department of Labor also fined the company $10,000 and $9,614 in 2022 for two wage and hour violations.