2012 Annual Report: The Roots of Our Success


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Dear Fellow Shareholders,

For 30 years I have had the good fortune to be a participant in agriculture’s emergence as a critical issue of our time — a trend that again accelerated this past year. Evidence of this shift appeared around the world in Mosaic’s fiscal 2012. At the World Economic Forum in Switzerland, the critical need for global food security was a primary topic of discussion. India’s parliament introduced a national food security bill to provide affordable grains to some 600 million people. Several Southeast Asian countries came together to establish a shared emergency rice reserve to ensure long-term food security in the region. And China’s renewed focus on agriculture policy led to the nation producing 570 million tons of grain, a new record.

The Mosaic Company is positioned and equipped to help meet the rising global demand for food, which brings great opportunity for our company and its stakeholders. I traveled extensively in fiscal 2012, and saw firsthand the many ways, large and small, in which Mosaic and our people embrace their responsibility to feed the world. The Mosaic Board of Directors and I, along with other senior leaders, visited Indian farmers who are transforming their yields — and their lives — through the application of our MicroEssentials® products. I saw farmers in Argentina experimenting with innovative fertilizer technology to improve their yields and help meet the growing global demand for grains. Across North America, I observed our employees safely operating mines and plants to produce phosphates and potash, and, to complete the cycle, I met with North American fertilizer dealers and their farming customers as they distributed our products to the field this spring.

There is no room for debate: The world needs to produce more food to nourish its growing population, and it cannot meet this acute need without innovative and balanced crop nutrition. Mosaic, driven by our mission to help the world grow the food it needs, is in a unique position to help — we have the most powerful combination of assets, resources, innovation and global reach in our industry. An urgent global need for food and a company with the means to help the world meet it: these are the roots of our success.

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