Yep, that yahoo with the goats right there is A face of
corporate agriculture. And I don’t mean I go out into the world and sell my
soul to lie about what’s going on in ag.
I mean that I work in what most would consider “factory farm”
situations, for a very large pork company. Said company may be independently
owned and run with Christian family values but that probably doesn’t matter to
all the haters out there in the world. And fear of what those haters would say
has kept me from really talking about WHAT I actually do at work. Not so much
fear of all the terrible things people will say, but fear that what I say would
give ammunition to the opposition.
But the last couple of years has really taught me a lot
about life and helped me grow into the person I am supposed to be. And one who
hopefully continues to grow and make a difference in the future.
“Corporate” agriculture is NOT the Devil. There are many
complex reasons for why agriculture largely consists of larger and larger
operations, mainly involving the reality of economics (and the smaller and
smaller amount of people who want to get their hands dirty). Let’s face it, it’s
a whole lot easier to weather the bad times when you have the money to back you
up and the history to keep you moving.
Case in point: We had a new site being built by a potential contract
grower who decided when the barn was finished that our contract benefited our
company more than them and that we were going to be out to get them the entire 12
years we partnered together. So they went out on their own and took all the
risk on themselves, having never raised pigs before. THEY ARE FREAKING NUTS! So nuts in fact that the bank pulled their
funding. And what was supposed to be a good way for a kid to come back to the
farm became Mommy and Daddy’s harebrained venture. There is nothing on this
earth that could convince me to pay off a $1 million+ barn while also sourcing
pigs, vet care, feed, transportation, marketing, etc. Nothing.
Our contract is designed to help producers pay off a brand
new barn in 10 years. It’s not designed for you to live off, it is designed to
help you build an asset for the future. Eventually you will own the building
and make more money. But banks don’t want to take all that risk on if there is
not guaranteed cash flow. And I wouldn’t want to either. When markets fluctuate
as much as they do, I would want to be making money no matter what. There’s a
reason small producers get pushed out.
Prices for pork go up and down (they are just now heading
back up), feed goes up and down (low corn right now but what happens when it
goes back up?), what happens if your pigs get desperately sick and you lose
half of them? So many things can go wrong in ag…and very rarely do you hear
that side of things. It’s not all rainbows and butterflies and cute piglets
running around.
So in an attempt to shed light onto another aspect of the
pork industry, I am going to start posting in detail about what my job entails.
It might bore the heck out of you, but you might just learn something. And it
might make you feel better about the pork industry.
Because I don’t spend every day caring for pigs and people
just for my health (sometimes all the worrying involved is actually detrimental
to my health).
Remember, “Big Ag” is full of “little” people too. Ones that
walk the line between big and small every day. There’s room for all shapes and
sizes at the table of food production.
Great post! Looking forward to learning more. :)
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