Shilling for the Man

There's been a cavalcade of book recommendations here lately. It shows my native weakness for hardbacks and literary fare, but I've also got a higher motive. Everyone looking for a revolutionized food culture—Janisse Ray, Gene Baur, Sara Miller—have called for consumers to make their dollars political, proving the importance of local, organic, etc. by spending on them. I'm not going to dispute the point, although I think it may overreach by assuming a large, informed consumer base, not to mention the common availability of “new” food stuffs. Before anyone exercises political power by buying organic mutton off the shelf, work has to be done to inculcate that person of the inherent merits of the choice. That's where I come in humbly, attempting to solidify a vibrant food conscious by broadcasting the values of community, stewardship, singularity, and, of course, healthy eating.

Dabney, Rawlings, even Baker help achieve that goal. So might Sylvia Tomlinson, author of Plucked and Burned, a fictional expose of chicken farming in the United States. In the author's own words:

Chicken farmers are often maligned as "factory farmers" when in fact, they run small family farms. Families, who while desperately looking for a commodity that might earn a decent return and keep them on the farm, believed the false promises made by poultry integrators. When I began my research, I was shocked to learn that the situation about which I intended to write was not an isolated, maverick incident. It was widespread across the country and most especially in the South and parts of the East Coast where few rural employment opportunities exist and environmental monitoring is less strenuous, at best.

Color me intrigued and a little envious of Tomlinson for writing the book before I could. My dad's a contract chicken farmer, and I've seen the farmer-company relationship first hand. Tomlinson likens it to indentured servitude; I'd call it modern-day sharecropping—just a difference of origins and vantage points no doubt. My dad has escaped most of the standard company harassment in the last decade because he's been with Fieldale, which has acted more sympathetically to its growers than any company in his memory. But pop's got stories. The company can drop you at its whim, and keep you on the line and in debt with constant capital demands. It seemed that for a good part of my childhood, every year my dad was threatened with being cut off unless he installed $20,000 worth of feeder trough or cool cell upgrades before the next flock. He was fortunate because my grandfather had farmed chickens, too, and the houses had been up and paid for a long time. Today it's inconceivable that a family could build new houses and ever be comfortably profitable. The technology cost alone is now exorbitant. While the company would offer easy financing, it wouldn't necessarily be friendly, and as I mentioned, they'd be prone to making demands that could keep a grower forever behind the eight ball. This is a particularly heinous activity considering the economics of chicken farming:

In reality, Tomlinson states (and this is courtesy of a professor of economics at Auburn) that the growers put up more than 50 percent of the cost of poultry farming, only to collect 1-2 percent of the end profit. The company, however, receives between 25-30 percent. One of the farmers at this summer's meeting wondered how he could let the public know that while consumers are paying between $5 and $8 for one package of chicken breasts, he is "lucky to get 30 cents on a whole chicken."

I don't have space or patience to get into the psychology of intimidation. Although there is a market of companies and growing contracts, farmers are afraid to shop around with their livelihoods at stake. The contracts are so vital yet tenuous that the growers are almost forced to develop a kind of obedience. The servicemen and their bosses exploit and encourage it, composing niggling lists each week, “writing you up” after measuring the height of the grass outside the door.

My dad is now 61-years-old and out of the chicken business. It's not by choice. The economy has forced Fieldale to cut back, and my dad's farm is inconvenient to reach in the developing southern end of Hall County, Georgia. I'm glad he no longer has to fight the daily stress of a broken feeder or a serviceman in a bad temper. However, he's lost his primarily cash-flow. As with most farmers, there's not a lot to fall back on.



UPDATE--Merritt Melancon at the Athens Banner-Herald has a story up on the effect of the recession, as well as recent residential development, on North Georgia chicken farmers (HT: Ben):

"We're good right now," Crowe said. "But you worry what will happen in a few months if this thing doesn't turn around. ... If they cut an entire flock of birds, even though I'm this close (five years) from paying off my houses, I'd have to restructure my loans. Then if they miss one flock, what's to keep them from cutting down to two, three a year."

UPDATE UPDATE--The article has an exceptionally lively comment section, and I couldn't resist quoting one of the comments in its entirety. I suspect that KPOST's statements are ironic, but apparently that's wishful thinking:

OH MY GOD! Why are you people defending a business that employs illegal aliens? All these farms need to be plowed under! I moved to Barrow county so I could get away from the Mexicans in Gwinnett. I didn't move to the countryside to have my residential activities disturbed by farming activities. I shouldn't have to look at horses or smell chicken ***** when I drive down the road! I can't build my $150,000 house because of that barn next to me. Where I want to put my house, I'd have to look at that freak'n barn. It's bad enough that I have to smell the chicken house everytime I drive by, and I WILL DO WHATEVER IT TAKES TO SHUT HIM DOWN. I managed to stop the horse farm from doing business!

And who are you people to judge me? You don't know me!

Another commenter, WTF, provides this well-measured response to KPOST: "Move to New York City and get run over by a bus. Thank you."