Contract Agriculture

66 posts

Big Chicken Companies Own or Control Everything Except the Farm, But Why?

July 14, 2016
Ninety-seven percent of the chicken we eat is produced by a farmer under contract with a big chicken company. In 2015, people consumed 112,000,000 metric tons of chicken globally. That’s an unfathomable quantity. So here’s one way to visualize it: That amounts the weight of two-thirds of all the cars on the road today in the United States—in chickens.  
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What Debt in Chicken Farming Says About American Agriculture

July 12, 2016
Poultry farmers are a major contributor to the statistics on rising debt levels in American farming. The contracts they have with Big Chicken companies are also the premiere model for production contract agriculture, which is spreading across agricultural industries. As other agricultural industries move in this direction, they are systematically exposing more farmers to higher stakes in debt related risks. The current combination of rising farm debt with decreasing farm income means that farmers are facing a financial squeeze, and that should raise serious red flags about the health and sustainability of our agricultural system.
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RAFI Responds to National Chicken Council Study

April 19, 2016
In a recent House committee meeting, Representative Harris (R-MD) justified a measure that would defund the USDA’s protection of poultry farmers, by citing a few strikingly odd facts - and claimed that 94% of growers re-sign their contracts every year, so 94% of growers must be happy. Interesting logic!
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RAFI's New Contract Poultry Page is Up!

May 15, 2015
RAFI invites you to visit our new & updated Contract Agriculture Reform website, unveiled only hours ago. We've been working hard to bring you new resources, content, and stories. Please have a look around, let us know what you think, and share with your network.
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#TBT: Revisiting “The Plucking of the American Chicken Farmer” -- 15 Years Later

May 14, 2015
In 1999, The Baltimore Sun ran a three-part series on the poultry industry and the farmers caught up in the abusive contracts and paralyzing debt that have since become all too common in contract poultry production. The series began with “The Plucking of the American Chicken Farmer,” which detailed the ruination of poultry farmers and pinpointed how some major companies were even cheating their growers. Collectively, the series presented 10 months of investigative work conducted by reporters Dan Fesperman and Kate Shatzkin.
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US House of Representatives

U.S. House of Rep. Committee on Appropriations

January 1, 2015
The United States House Committee on Appropriations is responsible for passing appropriation bills along with its Senate counterpart. The bills passed by the Appropriations Committee regulate expenditures of money by the government of the United States.
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Deep Losses Suffered by Sustainable Ag: The 2015 “Cromnibus”

December 17, 2014
The 2015 Final Annual Appropriations Bill passed by Congress late last week held more losses than wins for sustainable agriculture. The losses suffered by the sustainable agriculture community were deep and, in some cases, reversed progress gained over more than two decades of advocacy.
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