RAFI-USA

Bulletin #1, October 2001
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1. State attempts at passing Producer Protection Acts
2. Who is responsible for pollution from CAFO's?
3. Numbers of Poultry Farmers and Houses
4. Smithfield Ready to Try Lagoon Replacement

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1. State attempts at passing Producer Protection Acts

In September 2000, sixteen State Attorneys General signed on to a model Contract Producer Protection Act. They were from the states of Colorado, Indiana, Iowa, Kentucky, Nevada, Oklahoma, Minnesota, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, North Dakota, Vermont, West Virginia, Wisconsin, and Wyoming.

Led by Iowa's Attorney General, Tom Miller, the AG's saw the model bill as a possible way to provide them with the tools necessary to deal with an important cause of concentration in agriculture; namely, contracting. "We believe that states have an opportunity and, indeed, a responsibility to consider reasonable oversight of agricultural contracting that will lessen these risks and promote meaningful competition in agriculture," they wrote.

What has happened since September 2000? Thirteen states introduced all or part of the model Producer Protection Act endorsed by the Attorneys General. Those states are Georgia, Indiana, Illinois, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Mississippi, Missouri, Nebraska, North Carolina, North Dakota, Oklahoma, and South Dakota.

Of these state legislative attempts in 2000 and 2001, the following are the results so far:

• States with bills still alive ( either holding hearings or have completed hearings) are Georgia, Illinois, Iowa, Kansas, and Nebraska.

• States where PPA's failed in the first attempt are Indiana, Kentucky, Mississippi, Missouri, North Carolina, Oklahoma, South Dakota, and North Dakota.

• States that plan to introduce a PPA for the first time or reintroduce a PPA in the next session of their legislature: Alabama, Georgia, Missouri, Nebraska, Oklahoma, and South Carolina.

For details, bill numbers, actions taken, supporters, and local comments from each state, go to Contract Agricultural Resources We will continue to update this topic and would appreciate your input. Send comments to clouses64@yahoo.com

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2. Who is responsible for pollution from concentrated animal feeding operations (cafo's)?

"We have met the enemy and it is NOT us,"say contract poultry growers caught in one-sided contracts with some of the largest corporations in the world.

People are beginning to realize that farmers who sign contracts to grow chicken, turkeys, hogs, or cattle may not be to blame for the odors, flies or possible nutrient run-off from these farms, and problems the farmers have with carcass and litter disposal.

Signing the contract may have been the only way to preserve their family farms and homes and to maintain their way of life. They got into the business in good faith by listening to those they have been taught to trust - bankers, Cooperative Extension specialists, Farm Bureau, Legislators, Rural Economic Development officers, and government officials who gave tax breaks and other incentives to persuade the large processing companies to come into their state and set up shop. These officials assured the farmers that there would be no problems if they followed a few simple guidelines approved by the state legislators and regulators.

Farmers were invited by bankers to participate in the poultry industry with 100% financing and 90% USDA/FSA (taxpayer) guarantees for loans that can be 1/2 million dollars or more for four poultry houses. The details of the contract came AFTER the loans were arranged, the farm mortgaged and the poultry houses built! The farmer usually doesn't read the details of the contract at that point. The only thing that matters then is putting birds in the barns and working to pay off the loan.

Who designed the way the industry works? Was it the farmers who decided where to site the growout houses? Or what size barn to build? or how many birds to put in a barn? or how often to place flocks on the farm? and when the barns could be cleaned out? and who is responsible for the manure and carcass disposal? or how the contract reads? Who invited the industry into the state before all the environmental issues were settled to every stakeholder's satisfaction?

It wasn't the poultry growers. In fact the Oklahoma Attorney General says that actually the contract poultry growers are able to make so few decisions, they should really be classed as COMPANY EMPLOYEES. If that were to happen, then who would the polluter be?

What can concerned citizens do if smells, noise, flies, manure run-off or ground water pollution come from a particular CAFOs?

• Talk with the contract farmers with respect for the spot they are in . (with contracts that do not cash flow, that will never be paid off considering all the upgrades the companies demand, and with the fear of losing the contract along with their homes and farms if they speak up.)
  
• Enact tough zoning laws to reduce or stop any further expansion.
  
• Join the other organizations around the nation that have signed up to support the federal legislative initiatives included in a new Competition Title for the next Farm Bill - bargaining power for farmers, better enforcement power for the Packers and Stockyards Agency, and sensible, fair contract protections.
  
• Attempt Fair Contract legislation at the state level to protect farmers of all livestock and row crops who will be signing contracts.
• Set environmentalists and contract farmers down with each other to understand that they have common cause in preserving clean water, clean air and healthy soils. Design any needed regulations or reforms together.
  

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3. Numbers of poultry farmers and houses

According to estimates based on WATT Poultry USA's annual survey of the nation's largest poultry companies there are:

23,000 contract poultry farms in the United States with a total of

71,000 broiler growout houses

Tyson Foods ranks number 1 with 5,852 contract farms and 18,901 houses in broiler production. Gold Kist is in second place contracting with 2,600 farms using 6,300 broiler houses. Sanderson Farms is third with only 495 contract farms and 2,075 broiler houses.

According to the managers of the 52 broiler complexes and the 32 turkey complexes responding to the survey, the period of "aggressive expansion" is about over. The industry has more new housing than at anytime in the past five years, and is continuing with the upgrading of the older facilities. The well-maintained housing now on most complexes should last another 17-21 years, according to the complex managers. Now it looks like "hunker down time" according to the following article. http://www.WattPoultryUSA.net Watt Poultry USA, June 2001, p.38 "Housing and Equipment Survey"

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4. Smithfield Ready to Try Lagoon Replacement

A moratorium in North Carolina on building more hog confinement and lagoon facilities has been extended until July 2003. Processing plants are attempting to increase production by raising larger hogs while the moratorium remains in effect.

An agreement was signed in July of 2000 by Smithfield Foods Inc., and its subsidiaries in North Carolina to take immediate measures on company owned farms to test and install "environmentally superior technologies" (superior to lagoons) for the management of swine waste and to provide financial and technical assistance to Contract Farmers for the installation of these technologies on their farms. The companies were to commit $15 million to the development and evaluation of the new technologies and $50 million to "environmental enhancement activities" as guided by the Attorney General especially in the Albemarle-Pamlico National Estuary Program.

Premium Standard Farms committed $2.5 million for research on improved waste technology under a similar agreement with the Attorney General, now Governor Mike Easley.

The first new technology has been selected by the NC Attorney General and Smithfield Foods Inc. for trial on a 4,360-pig farm in NC"s Duplin County. Scientists in Florence, South Carolina with the USDA Agricultural Research Service have adapted a Japanese state-of-the-art technology for treating municipal wastewater with large populations of nitrifying bacteria trapped in polymer gel pellets for the project.

The system will separate out nearly 97% of the solids to make a soil-less growth medium, remove nitrogen and phosphorus from the wastewater and recycle the water through the swine houses for cleaning. The lagoons will be by-passed during the trial period.

This announcement of Smithfield's first trial of a lagoon replacement technology on a working farm should not be interpreted as an endorsement by RAFI-USA.

For more information on the experiment see:

1. Foodstuffs, August 20, 2001, "ARS evaluating Japanese waste treatment process", p. 5

2. July issue of Agricultural Research Service magazine at http://www.ars.usda.gov/is/AR/archive/jul01/swine0701.htm

Also see: Environmental Defense's central source for information and action on Industrial Hog Farming in North Carolina at http://www.hogwatch.org