But anyone who signs a contract with these corporations are easily fooled. I watched as 5 different farmers who signed on 3 years ago went bankrupt. Now, 2 of them went bankrupt because of medical bills. But if they aren't making enough money to buy health insurance, maybe they shouldn't be doing it. One couple I tried to tell them it was not going to make them any money but they went ahead anyway. I went to a meeting where I think it was Tyson, this was 3 years ago, was offering farmers contracts and they made it sound like you would make $100,000 profit each year. I don't know of anyone who even made a quarter of that profit once they paid their bills.
The thing with farming is you can hide expenses easily if you don't track them carefully. You get a loan, build a huge building, buy a bunch of chicks (some of the corporations make you buy their chicks from them. You can't buy any others, but you have to come up with the cash for the chicks.) buy their feed and water supplements and run the electricity and pay the vet. It's easy to lose track that you are paying on the chicken building still. You are paying for the electricity and you are spending 6 to 8 hours a day feeding, cleaning and caring for the chickens.
And they are ruining it for us independent chicken farmers. All the independent slaughterhouses have stopped taking chickens. Can't find a single slaughterhouse in my state that will take my chickens. All the slaughterhouses that do take chickens only take the corporation's chickens. They have a contract and they will lose their contract with Tyson or whoever if they take my chickens. They wont take my 100 chickens. So, I get to drive 150 miles to another state to get them slaughtered. Now, the corporations has NOT only taken up all the markets for the sale of chicken meat from grocery stores to schools to hospitals (they are working on taking over the farmer's markets too) , they have made it arduous for their competition to even process their chickens. These damn corporations have forced the little guy out of the market and in the process bankrupts their own farmers.
What a scam.
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