WASHINGTON, Dec. 7, 2016 - A new documentary doesn’t exactly
paint a rosy picture of life as a contract chicken farmer, but some of these
poultry producers remain optimistic about possible improvements and help from a
new administration.
The documentary – Under Contract – profiles a
handful of farmers who are either currently in the contract farming business or
have given up and left it behind, and none of them have good things to say
about the system. They say it centralizes power and profit to the “integrators”
– the poultry companies – and often shortchanges the growers.
“The problem here is every other agricultural industry in
the area in which I live is controlled by the grower themselves,” Paul Brown, a
former Tyson contract grower from Mississippi, told Agri-Pulse at a screening of the film Monday night in Washington. “I
think personally, after living through that, the poultry grower himself needs
to have the power of his product just as he would if he were raising cattle,
corn, or soybeans.”
Growers say the arrangement – the integrators provide the
chicks and other inputs, while the growers provide the facilities and the labor
– can leave them vulnerable, especially when most of the contracts only last
about 60 days. For example, companies can require facility improvements at the
cost to the grower yet with little or no increase in base pay.
Craig Watts was a contract grower for Perdue in North
Carolina for 24 years, but he grew frustrated with the business model and
called it quits.
“I didn’t see any future in something there was never a past
to,” Watts told Agri-Pulse. “The
image and reality are very far apart.”
But the parties with a stake in the documentary are hopeful
that President-elect Donald Trump could be on their side. In particular,
they’re hoping Trump’s promised regulatory overhaul will spare pending
rulemaking from the Grain Inspection,
Packers and Stockyards Administration (GIPSA).
“We’re just asking for fair treatment,” Mike Weaver, a West
Virginia contract grower who heads a pair of groups interested in this issue,
said in an interview with Agri-Pulse.
They say that rule – which is expected to be released before Trump takes office
– would allow for more open communication about the contract farming system
without the fear of retaliation. Right now, growers who speak up say they are
punished by receiving lower quality feed, less healthy birds, retaliatory
inspections, and other tactics.
“I think there are a lot of folks in rural America that are
believing fairness as a fundamental principle is something this president-elect
campaigned for,” National Farmers Union President Roger Johnson said at the
event. “I think around this issue, a lot of us might expect maybe we’ll have a
friend. We’ll see.” The screening was organized by the National Farmers Union,
the National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition, and Rural Advancement
Foundation International-USA.
Tom Super, a
spokesman for the National
Chicken Council, disagreed with the
documentary’s portrayal of the industry. He said the film portrays “a handful
of farmers who do not speak on behalf of the vast majority of chicken
farmers who are happy and prosper raising chickens in partnership with
chicken companies.”
“The proposed GIPSA
rules, which they are promoting, would impose rigid, one-size-fits-all
requirements on chicken growing contracts that would stifle innovation, lead to
higher costs for consumers and force the best farmers getting out of the
chicken business,” Super said. “Most of all, some of these provisions would
have a detrimental impact on the welfare of the birds by eliminating
competition and the incentive to provide the best care possible on the farm.”
#30
