Editorials
Editorials Archive

Feeling the pinch
The Gazette, staff
03-03-2010

It’s been one year since the world in Union Parish was turned upside down by the announcement that Pilgrim’s Pride would idle its Farmerville and El Dorado poultry facilities.
Last year’s announcement came at the annual legislative breakfast at Union General Hospital — the same one held last Wednesday. The tone and tenor of last Wednesday’s meeting was indeed much brighter. Our poultry facility is operational, thanks to state intervention and the purchase of the facility by Foster Farms.
For that we are grateful, but the picture is far from rosy, particularly for our local poultry farmers.
According to Jason Holmes, the Union Parish county agent for the LSU AgCenter, approximately 70 percent of our local poultry growers have received contracts to provide birds to Foster Farms.
That’s the good news. The bad news is that these farmers are struggling to make a profit. Profit on a poultry farm is easiest measured by money earned per square feet of chicken houses. According to Holmes, a recent study showed that the average pay per square feet from Pilgrim’s Pride in Natchitoches, Raeford Farms in Arcadia and Sanderson Farms in Waco, Texas to growers to grow chickens was $2.21 per square foot.
Right now Foster Farms is paying $1.77 per square foot to the local poultry growers. According to Holmes, our local growers are struggling to make a profit and some are even losing money. Some are having to work off the farm to help subsidize farm debt. Frustration is growing.
“Our farmers want to know what the business plan is and Foster Farms is not readily forthcoming with that information,’’ Holmes said. “If they give them (the poultry grower) the big picture and what the projections and goals are, it might help ease their minds, but they’re not getting any of that – and they want to hear it from the upper management of Foster Farms in California.’’
During the whole saga a year ago, the local poultry growers studied the possibility of forming a co-op and purchasing the plant from Pilgrim’s Pride. The effort never gained much steam because of the complexity, finances and other issues it would have taken to pull that off.
But during that effort, the growers had hoped to at least get the attention of the potential new buyer, in this case Foster Farms, to at least have a seat at the table, a voice that could be heard.
Apparently, the local growers have little to no voice and are being offered take-it-or-leave-it deals.
Holmes, who works closely with the local poultry growers, believes the issue is beginning to snowball and open dialogue is needed to diffuse it.
“In the famous words of Cool Hand Luke ‘what we have here is a failure to communicate,’’’ Holmes said. “Our farmers need the opportunity to be treated and recognized as a business partner, to be profitable in their business just as Foster Farms has the opportunity to be profitable. Our local poultry farms are about to disappear if we cannot address profitability.
“If you had a business investment of $1 million, would you continue to work tirelessly for a yearly net of $16,000 to $19,000? I’ll bet you wouldn’t, and neither would I. That is what our growers are facing. To put that in perspective, for 2009, the federal poverty level was $22,050 for a family of four.”