Group meets to blow whistle on contract poultry industry
At the St. Alban's Episcopal Church in Salisbury a group gathered to discuss and watch a new documentary film on the contract poultry industry Wednesday evening.
Craig Watts was named Whistleblower Insider's "2015 Whistleblower of the Year." He was a contract poultry farmer for over 23 years, now working independently. Watts says the industry will take care of you, "as long as they need you." He says he has seen first hand what the business can do to farmers.
"I've seen people bankrupted, lose everything they own, on the verge of losing everything they own. And I've heard two or three contemplating suicide, and I have a friend of a friend who committed suicide when the plant shut down and he had no other option. He was $600,000 in debt with no way to pay for it."
He says he had to start life all over at 50, saying he woke up one morning and decided he had had enough. He adds the big corporations would withhold birds to force farmers to do things that may not have been in their best interest.
Genell Pridgen is a ninth-generation family farmer from Snow Hill, North Carolina. Her family has owned farms since 1746, and they have also been a part of the contract poultry industry. She says when discussing contracts, costs and benefits may not always be what they appear.
"You get a nice slick salespitch and a nice brochure from the car company, or in this case the chicken company, and it makes it all look good."
Pridgen went on to say there are a lot of unknowns and things not listed that potential farmers and growers do not know about going in. Another factor Pridgen adds is the price of a chicken house, saying farmers might look at adding four houses for about $1 million, and not making enough money to ever pay back that debt.
Pridgen went on to say farmers, many uninformed, sign over their land and their homes in their contracts.
"They don't just lose that land, they lose the home, they lose the roof over their head that keeps the roof over the head over their kids."
As for Watts, he says he is happy with the decision he made to be independent, the only regret he has is he wishes he had done it sooner.
"No way. If I knew then what I know now I'd have never signed it to start with."
In the U.S. alone, 97 percent of the chicken produced is raised by family farmers under contract with large companies. You can find out more information at RAFIUSA.org/undercontractfilm.
