Cargill's yearly revenues are higher than Kuwait's or Vietnam's. It's sales are greater than Disney, Kraft Foods and PepsiCo combined. Minnesota-based Cargill is so big it "can influence agricultural markets around the world and affect prices consumers pay for everything from hamburgers to bread, according to some agricultural economists," reports the Minneapolis Star-Tribune's Chris Serres in story about the company the paper calls a "silent giant."

As food prices have risen worldwide, pushing tens of millions of people into poverty, the increasingly large companies that dominate the world's food production are rightly of interest. Serres writes about Cargill, one of the largest, in a series on food. Cargill is huge and it is still privately owned, largely by descendants of brothers William Wallace and Samuel Cargill. The company is also secretive. "Everyone knows they make a ton of money, but no one really knows how," said Michael Tian, an agricultural analyst at Morningstar. Serres contacted 30 family members and none agreed to an interview.

Farmers and consumers are worried about corporate concentrations in the food and fertilizer industries. Cargill is at the center of those businesses worldwide. Good story.

Corn prices are down but grocery prices aren't. Corn prices have "taken quite a dip," Darrel McAlexander, who farms near Sidney in southwest Iowa, told Des Moines Register reporter Philip Brasher. "We haven't seen the food prices back off that much." So, Brasher asks, "What gives?"

Ethanol producers tell Brasher that the fact food prices have remained high proves the fuel had little or nothing to do with grocery costs. Economists say there were several reasons for higher food prices besides increased corn demands from ethanol production, including speculation in commodity markets, higher energy costs and troublesome weather. Most predict grocery prices will soon start coming down. Meanwhile, food producers (ConAgra, General Foods, Kraft and DelMonte) have all announced double-digit increases in sales.

One grocery chain (Wegman's) has already announced price cuts. Farmers have already had their cuts, however. Corn peaked at almost $8 a bushel in June. It's now down to about $4, about the price farmers need to get for them to plant enough corn to supply ethanol and food producers.

Enough with the bailouts, debates, wars and stock market collapses. Let's talk pumpkins — as in Steve Connolly's attempt to grow the world's largest (ever) pumpkin.

For the past five months, the Boston Globe reports, Connolly (of Sharon, Massachusetts, above, with pumpkin) has given special care to his gourd, slaked its thirst with a garden hose, shaded it from the sun with a cotton sheet, kept off the rain with a plastic tarp. He regularly fed it an exotic recipe of ground bone, blood, fish, molasses, and cow and chicken manure. Now more than 16 feet around and weighing an estimated 1,878 pounds, it is packing on 11 pounds a day."

He has already surpassed the previous world record of 1,689 pounds. Connolly now wants to grow the first full ton pumpkin. Now he worries about teenage vandals, cracking and loading the monster onto his truck without tearing it apart.