Chicken Run A new book examines how one agribusiness giant remade the American meat industry Jessica Valenti
Leonard claims that the Tyson firm has essentially made modern sharecroppers out of American poultry farmers by a relentless drive to vertically integrate all the company’s operations. The process began under the leadership of Don Tyson’s father, John, and built to the point where the firm controlled “every point in the chain of production where someone else might have made a profit.” Today, Tyson makes the feed, hatches the birds, gives them to farmers to raise, then picks them up for slaughter and processing. Farmers have no control over the quality of the feed or birds, and are beholden to Tyson in all that they do. Tyson also worked with banks to ensure that farmers were given huge loans, creating what Leonard calls a new generation of “indentured farmers.” Tyson even pits farmer against farmer in a “tournament” for best standing with the company, an agricultural version of the Hunger Games that puts old farms out of business as newer farms—outfitted with more generous loans and bigger equipment—take their place. (Of course, those new farms eventually become old farms, too, losing their standing with the company as soon as a more robust competitor comes along.) full: http://www.bookforum.com/inprint/021_01/12989 _______________________________________________ pen-l mailing list [email protected] https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l
