Tulsa attorney on the environment and serfdom among chicken farmers

[Hand]

Chuck Shipley sounds like a good guy :thumbsup::

If people in the cities knew what is being done to farmers in the outlying areas, they'd be outraged. In the OK Foods case, a jury found that OK is treating their growers like serfs. They are the only integrated chicken processors in LeFlore County. If you want to grow chickens, you have to sign up with OK Foods—they draw up the contract, they tell you who to hire to build your poultry houses according to their specifications and with their oversight, and you have to own your land free and clear. They'll introduce you to a bank but they will not co-sign a loan with that bank for you.

OK Foods will bring you your first flock of chickens, but after that you have to please them or they will stop. Their fieldmen visit the farms once a week or so and tell the farmer to cut the grass or do this or that. If they don't believe that you are doing your job properly, they have the unilateral right to stop bringing you birds to raise.

For the last three to five years, OK Foods requires you to build a minimum of six 50,000-bird poultry houses; that's about 300,000 birds per farmer. The company breeds the chicks, they bring them to you at one week old, you keep them until they're six to eight weeks old, then they are collected, slaughtered, and prepared for the market.

If you have been a good boy, they may bring you a new flock as soon as one week later. It might be as much as three weeks or five weeks later if they want to show their displeasure. Meanwhile, you have to keep making your bank payments, and if you don't do well, you're out of business.

Link to full interview