Down on the Farm: Modern Day Sharecroppers

When Tom Greene agreed to grow chickens for ConAgra, Inc. 11 years ago, he thought it would be the fulfillment of a longtime fantasy to make his living working his own land. He and his wife, Ruth, had just bought the 90-acre farm they had dreamed about as a young couple 20 years before.

But these days, their four long, corrugated tin chicken houses are operated by somebody else. In January 1999, Greene, a former military public affairs officer, helplessly watched as his chicken farm went under the auctioneer's hammer because of a dispute with ConAgra.

Greene explains that he, along with 38 other farmers in Enterprise, Alabama objected when ConAgra demanded that they take out loans to invest in costly new equipment. They also balked at signing a contract that would forfeit their right to sue the company in the case of a disagreement.

Greene says he and his neighbors already had as much debt as they could manage. In order to get into the business, farmers must borrow a lot of money -- about $125,000 per chicken house -- to build facilities according to the poultry company's specifications. Since most chicken companies encourage growers to build four or more chicken houses, that represents an initial investment today of at least $500,000.

Like their heavily indebted counterparts throughout the industry, Greene and friends were not in a position to negotiate. That's because the chicken houses that they sunk their financial futures into have one purpose: to grow chickens. Without a steady supply of birds, farmers can't pay their mortgages. When Greene refused to change his mind, ConAgra terminated their business relationship, and he lost his farm.

Most chicken growers are reluctant to talk publicly for fear of reprisals, but many complain of predicaments like Greene's. They say the corporations that control the chicken industry hook new growers on the promise of making a good, steady income at home. Instead, growers find themselves trapped in debt-laden relationships that turn them into serfs at the mercy of the companies that make a fortune on their backs.

Nobody knows how many poultry growers have lost their contracts because only the companies have that information, says Mary Clouse, who runs the Contract Agriculture/Poultry Project at the Rural Advancement Foundation International (RAFI). Poultry companies say the number is very low.

Modern Day Sharecroppers

The way it works is that farmers provide the land, buildings, and their labor. The companies supply -- and retain ownership of -- the chickens, the feed, and any medicine the birds might need.

Growers are paid for growing the heaviest and healthiest birds on the least amount of feed in the six weeks they have the birds. The companies determine how well growers achieve those goals and pay them accordingly, using a complicated formula that ranks each grower's performance against the others who had birds picked up for processing that week.

But chicken growers say their performance is out of their hands, because they have no control over the quality and quantity of the birds, feed, and medicine they receive. They also claim the companies manipulate the ranking system to further erode their pay, a widespread allegation that the companies deny.

"There's no reason a company would discriminate or unnecessarily reward somebody for more than they deserve," says Bill Roenigk, vice president of the National Chicken Council, the industry's trade association in Washington, D.C. He adds that the ranking system is based on the same market-oriented, competitive model as the free market, because "those who work the hardest deserve to be paid the most."

However, several lawsuits have confirmed growers' claims that chicken companies, including ConAgra, have for years engaged in dirty tricks to cheat the farmers, such as delivering unhealthy birds, shortchanging growers on the quantity and quality of the feed, tinkering with the scales, and keeping the birds in hot parking lots for hours before they are weighed to make them drop weight.