Both sides put up about half of the poultry industry's capital investment.Ī company's investment - in factories, hatcheries, feed mills and employees - lets it compete freely for as much as it can earn in a marketplace that has proved very profitable. The relationship between chicken farmers and their companies is equal only in terms of their financial stake. "What they wanted to do is close down as many of us as they could. "They just gave us the runaround," said Celia English, 62, a ConAgra grower in Alabama who lost her 290-acre farm to foreclosure when the company refused to offer a contract to any prospective buyer. Without one, a farm is virtually worthless and unsellable. Getting a contract to grow chickens is essential to potential buyers. * The companies have almost absolute power when growers like Probst try to sell their farms. The result: rules and penalties directed at farmers, not at companies. The industry made similar threats in Maryland and Oklahoma when legislatures considered ways to curb pollution from chicken-manure runoff. * When chicken growers ask state legislatures for help, poultry companies almost invariably defeat them by threatening to move their plants and jobs elsewhere. Growers who refuse, such as Ed Probst, lose their contracts and their livelihoods. Most poultry contracts now require farmers to sign away most rights to sue. * The farmer's only proven defense against companies is the private lawsuit, which is rapidly being disarmed. The only resulting financial penalty: $477, paid by a small poultry company in South Carolina. Despite fielding more than 1,000 complaints from chicken farmers, the agency has gone to court on their behalf only twice. Department of Agriculture's Grain Inspection, Packers and Stockyards Administration almost never produces tangible results. Even when empowered to investigate, the U.S. The lone federal agency charged with protecting his interests has missed evidence of fraud. * The chicken farmer has virtually no one in government to help him. Yet law enforcement agencies launched no criminal probes. Class action lawsuits in four states uncovered evidence that such cheating went on for years. * Some companies have systematically cheated growers at the place that matters most on payday - the scales where chickens are weighed. The additional debt means most chicken houses aren't paid for until they've reached the age when productivity - and income - generally begin to decline.
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