Crop Production Industry Competitors

Kuala Lumpur Kepong has a hand in everything from rubber gloves to lotion. The diversified company's plantation sector consists of more than 150,000 hectares (about 371,000 acres), which are devoted to palm oil, rubber, and cocoa. Subsidiary Crabtree & Evelyn sells personal care and home accessory items worldwide....

Albin Hagstrom & Son has plenty of fronds in cool places. The company grows more than 70 varieties of ferns and other greenery used in floral arrangements and ships products to customers throughout North America and Europe. Greenery is grown on 500 acres in Florida; the company also offers products from other areas of the US and international locations....

Onions might make people cry, but at Gills Onions they smile right through their tears. The company is one of the world's largest fresh onion processors that makes packaged products for both the retail and foodservice markets. Its products include diced, sliced, slivered, and pureed red and yellow onions....

J.G. Boswell grows and mills cotton on some 150,000 acres in the San Joaquin Valley of California which it sells to textile manufacturers worldwide. The secretive company is the country's largest cotton producer and is said to be the largest privately held farming venture in the US....

SIPEF (Societe Internationale de Plantations et de Finance) focuses on the tropical plantation business. Starting in business in 1919, the Belgium-based company produces and trades a variety of agricultural products, such as palm oil, rubber, tea, tropical fruits, spices and ornamental plants....

The Green Valley Pecan Company owns about 5,000 acres of pecan trees just south of Tucson, Arizona. The orchards produce the crop from which Green Valley manufactures approximately 8 million pounds a year of shelled, roasted and unroasted, whole, halved, chopped, and ground pecans....

Cosan wants to believe it has found the sweet spot in the sugarcane, ethanol, and sugar triangle. One of the largest growers and processors of sugarcane in the world, Cosan turns its raw material into refined sugar and ethanol. Operating primarily out of Brazil's south central state of Sao Paulo, the company runs 17 mills, two refineries, two port facilities and numerous warehouses....

Where's the beef? It's in Argentina -- at Cresud, one of Argentina's largest agricultural companies. It raises beef and dairy cattle and cultivates grains, including corn, soybeans, sunflowers, and wheat. Cresud, an agricultural REIT (real estate investment trust), is also one of Argentina's largest landowners (some 330,000 hectares)....

Parsley, sage, rosemary, and ... HerbThyme. HerbThyme Farms produces and sells culinary herbs and edible flowers. The company, a top US grower and shipper of fresh herbs, produces organic tarragon, basil, thyme, and other edible plants, as well as herbal blend products....

Get some new cotton underwear for a gift? Chances are Staple Cotton Cooperative Association (Staplcotn) grew the cotton your new skivvies are made of. Most of the co-op's yield is sold to the US textile industry to make men's knit underwear, T-shirts, sheets, towels, and denim....