US President Donald Trump announced in an authoritative tone that if Iran’s frozen assets are released, the Islamic Republic “is only authorised to use its foreign assets to purchase grain, soy, corn, and humanitarian goods from American farmers.” This statement triggered a wave of harsh reactions, protests, and denials across Iran’s political and media landscape. Radical figures and even some officials, speaking from official and unofficial rostrums, declared that purchasing from America was a red line, labelling any transaction with Washington using the unfrozen funds as a surrender to imperialism.
However, this propaganda storm quickly collapsed following an unexpected revelation. At the height of the controversy and protests over the potential purchase of food from the US, Mehdi Mohammadi, an adviser to Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, shut down the critics while defending state decisions and the Central Bank’s approach. In doing so, he pulled back the curtain on a 20-year reality:
“For more than twenty years, we have been purchasing our country’s essential commodities from two American companies, Bunge and Cargill. Even now, the Central Bank intends to buy from the same two companies it has always bought from.”
This revelation of a two-decade-long practice of purchasing $16 billion worth of food annually from two predominantly American companies invalidated years of claims regarding Iran’s absolute food self-sufficiency and independence. It served as a stark reminder that the Central Bank of the Islamic Republic relies on a network largely influenced and directly owned by the United States to secure society’s most basic dietary needs, including corn, soy, and wheat
In reality, the public’s daily bread has been tied to purchases from these corporations for more than two decades. Iran’s food security remains dependent on the very system that the ruling establishment prides itself on confronting and fighting at the political and military levels
This report examines the two American giants of the global food trade, Bunge Global and Cargill, their roles in the global and Iranian food supply chains, and the precise level of the Iranian public’s food dependency on American farmers
The Main Players in Global Food
Global food security is practically controlled by an informal cartel known as the “ABCD” group. These four massive corporations are Archer Daniels Midland (ADM), Bunge, Cargill, and Louis Dreyfus. Among them, Cargill and Bunge play a vital role in supplying animal feed and grain to Iran
Cargill: The American Family Empire
Cargill is the largest privately held, non-publicly traded corporation in the United States. Unlike most corporate giants, Cargill’s shares are not listed on the stock exchange. Its ownership remains primarily controlled by the descendants of its founders, the Cargill and MacMillan families. Managing a legendary fortune, this family operates one of the most powerful and reclusive family cartels in the world
Founded in 1865 by William Wallace Cargill in Minnesota, the company’s headquarters remain there to this day. Being a private entity means that its financial and operational data are less transparent than those of publicly traded companies, but its role in the global food trade is highly prominent and decisive. Cargill’s sphere of influence, operations, and products is vast, spanning animal feed, grains, maritime transportation, financial services, and the meat industry, to the extent that Cargill is involved in some way in the supply chain of nearly all food consumed worldwide.
Bunge: The Multinational Giant with Euro-American Roots
Bunge is one of the oldest players in the global agribusiness sector, boasting a history of more than two centuries. Today, it operates as a publicly traded multinational corporation, with its shares listed on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE). Originally founded in the Netherlands, the company relocated its headquarters to Brazil and later operated from New York for decades. While its legal registration is currently in Geneva, Switzerland, its executive management and major decision-making are still driven from US soil.
Bunge’s ownership is distributed among institutional investors. In fact, its shares are held by major investment funds, global financial heavyweights such as Vanguard and BlackRock, and retail shareholders. Consequently, contrary to common belief, it does not have a “single owner” and is instead part of a complex global capitalist network. The company is the world’s largest processor of oilseeds and a primary supplier of soybeans and vegetable oils
As previously mentioned, Bunge and Cargill are part of the globally recognised “ABCD” group of four companies that control a vast portion of the international grain trade. This concentration of power means that the food security of many nations is virtually tied to the decisions and performance of this limited number of corporations. In such a structure, food-importing countries must navigate not only market fluctuations but also the immense bargaining power of these massive enterprises
The History of Food Imports to Iran from Two Corporations: Two Decades of Evading Reality
Over the past few decades, Iran has gradually transformed into a major importer of essential commodities such as wheat, corn, and soybeans. Due to flawed domestic production policies, the depletion and waste of the country’s water resources, and an unstable investment climate, claims of “agricultural self-sufficiency” have effectively reached a dead end. Consequently, Iran is now more dependent than ever on imports of livestock feed, including corn and soy. Without these inputs, the domestic production cycle for poultry, eggs, meat, and dairy would grind to a halt within weeks. Under these circumstances, Iran has no choice but to engage in continuous, high-volume purchases from the limited number of international corporations that dominate the market.
Mehdi Mohammadi, an adviser to Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, cited an annual figure of $16 billion when describing the scale of Iran’s yearly purchases from Cargill and Bunge. Meanwhile, according to the latest statistics published by the Customs Administration of the Islamic Republic of Iran, the total value of essential commodity imports in 1402, from March 2023 to March 2024, was approximately $16 billion. Therefore, if the total annual value of imported food and essential goods is estimated to be between $16 billion and $20 billion, it would mean that well over 70% of Iran’s imported essential commodities are purchased from Bunge and Cargill alone. This highlights a vital food dependency on these two American giants.
However, the political rhetoric of resisting the West has made importing food and livestock feed far more expensive than it should be. While it is true that food and medicine are officially exempt from international sanctions, this is only one side of the coin. The other side involves the exorbitant costs of securing intermediaries to facilitate purchases and transfer currency. To acquire the same grain that neighbouring countries purchase at standard market rates, Iran must independently shoulder the additional costs of middlemen, multi-tier brokers, transaction fees, shipping, and inflated maritime insurance, especially during periods of conflict, while also paying separate commissions to facilitators.
Furthermore, in the absence of standard international banking mechanisms and the inability to utilise letters of credit, Iran must independently absorb the risks of non-delivery, substandard quality, or incomplete shipments. The financial burden of all these risks is ultimately extracted directly from the pockets of ordinary Iranian consumers
In effect, while anti-American slogans are broadcast by state media and from official rostrums inside the country, Iran’s oil revenues, depleted by heavy sanctions-related penalties, are funnelled into the accounts of American corporations or their affiliated intermediaries to secure bread, grains, protein, and dairy at prices far exceeding global standards
How Bunge and Cargill Navigate Sanctioned Iran
Because the trade in food and agricultural products is classified as humanitarian, it has never been subjected to direct US sanctions and is officially exempt. Legally, this means that companies such as Bunge and Cargill are permitted to trade with Iran. However, this does not mean that the two giants supply Iran with grains and livestock feed without obstacles. Broad banking and financial sanctions effectively block the primary channels of commerce with Tehran. Experience demonstrates that when sanctions intensify, these food and feed suppliers are often among the first commercial partners to halt sales and freeze new contracts.
In 2018, coinciding with Donald Trump’s “maximum pressure” campaign, corporations such as Cargill and Bunge effectively suspended their food transactions with Iran. Despite humanitarian exemptions for food and medicine, international banks strictly avoided processing any transactions linked to Iran out of fear of heavy fines and secondary US sanctions
As a result, no official or legal avenue remained through which payments from Iran could be received, presenting Cargill and Bunge with a simple reality: even if a sale was legally permissible, receiving payment for it was not guaranteed
Because these global food suppliers operate primarily on high profit margins and with low risk tolerance, the severe risks associated with secondary sanctions, potential asset freezes, and complex shipping and insurance logistics led them to sever trade ties with Iran without hesitation. They immediately halted new contracts and withdrew from ongoing transactions
Faced with a vital domestic need for these products, Iran turned to alternative, non-transparent routes: intermediaries, smaller third-party brokers, indirect purchases through secondary markets, and shell companies used to transfer funds. While this complicated the supply chain and drastically drove up costs, Cargill and Bunge products still had to be acquired and imported at any price
Consequently, Iran’s procurement mechanism involving these two grain giants has remained plagued by payment challenges. To avoid directly violating financial regulations on US soil, these corporations register and manage their Iranian grain contracts through foreign branch offices. In most cases, grain produced by Cargill or Bunge is purchased in third-party jurisdictions, such as Dubai or Singapore, by state-owned, quasi-governmental, or affiliated Iranian intermediary companies before being shipped to southern Iranian ports.
However, bypassing standard banking channels forces Iran to buy from multi-tier brokers rather than directly from the primary suppliers and to route payments through unconventional networks
This process results in inflated financial transfer fees, higher landed costs, increased shipping and insurance risks, and diminished bargaining power. Ultimately, the essential commodities required to secure the public’s daily bread enter the country at prices far exceeding their actual value. This premium is paid out of the pockets of the Iranian people and into the hands of brokers and intermediary financial networks, with the additional costs passed directly on to domestic consumers
The reality remains that the global food supply chain is concentrated in the hands of a select few corporations in the US and Europe, and Iran relies on companies situated at the very heart of the US economy to meet its most critical survival needs. Fortunately for Iran’s procurement system, under the laws of commerce and profitability, the gears of this system turn independently of the epic slogans emblazoned on Tehran’s billboards or shouted during official state broadcasts
To feed a population of 90 million, political decision-makers in the Islamic Republic have little choice but to comply with the operational realities of these massive cartels, even as they continue to chant slogans against them at Friday prayers and across state media
