Insanity in the House of Representatives

In keeping with the apparent theme of insanity running wild in Congress the House Agriculture Committee passed its version of the 2012 Farm Bill. Of particular interest to me is an amendment introduced by Congressman Steve King (R), Iowa. Known as the “Protect Interstate Commerce Act” (PICA), King is crowing its victory of inclusion in the final markup of the House Agriculture Committee’s Farm Bill.

Essentially, PICA “prohibits states from enacting laws that place onerous conditions on the means of production for agricultural goods that are sold within its own borders but are produced in other states”, says Kings website.

Specifically, King points to “free-range eggs” or “free-range pork” saying that “PICA will ensure that radical organizations like the Humane Society of the United States (HSUS) and PETA are prohibited from establishing a patchwork of restrictive state laws aimed at slowly suffocating production agriculture out of existence.” According to meatingplace, King’s statement wasn’t as well crafted, saying the amendment will “shut down the Humane Society of the United States, PETA and other radical organizations from creating a network of restrictive state laws that will slowly push agriculture production towards the demise.”

Iowa’s egg farmers lead the nation in egg production, caring for nearly 60 million laying hens producing nearly 15 billion eggs per year. That’s almost one out of every five eggs produced in the United States, says the Iowa Egg Council (IEC). What isn’t said is that the great salmonella enteritidis outbreak in 2010 was linked to DeCoster Eggs, whose huge egg production operations in rural northern Iowa prompted the recall of 550 million eggs and sickened roughly 2,000 people. IEC also doesn’t tell you that a former manager in the network of companies owned by Jack DeCoster, plead guilty in 2012 for his role in a conspiracy to bribe a federal inspector to allow the sale of unapproved eggs.

California is at the crux of the issue when state legislation becomes effective in 2014 requiring only ‘free range’ eggs are sold. Voters in California and other states choose this. King argues that “the impact of their [CA] large market would compel producers in every other state to invest billions to meet the California standard” of production methods.

This has nothing to do with protecting interstate commerce. It has everything to do with protecting industrialized animal production and forcing its products on states that clearly don’t want them. Wouldn’t it be nice if all farmers could get a guarantee of business mandated by our government?

It appears that Congressman King is promoting farm animal practices which aren’t conscientious of animal welfare, public health, or food safety. King only knows that his state produces a lot of eggs which translate to big bucks!

What can one expect from a congressional member who rabidly defended “pink slime” in 2012? Using phrases and words such as “lean finely textured beef”, “enhancement”, and “supplement”, King went on an aggressive campaign pledging congressional hearings against those who conducted a “smear campaign” against pink slime.

Adding salt to the wound, other members of the House Agriculture Committee went along with Kings amendment.  INSANITY!

Note: All links accessed 05/17/2013

United Egg Producer Certified….. For Real?

Warning – Sit back in your chair and grab a beverage, this one is lengthy.

One would think that as many years as I have under my belt in industrial animal production that nothing would surprise me let alone faze me. In other words I’m somewhat jaded.

A friend sent me a link to a video clip on You Tube that left me shaking my head and asking “are you serious”. A slick campaign has been conjured up to convince the general public that The United Egg Producers (UEP) have the “premier animal welfare” for their laying hens with their very own seal of certification.

After watching, I set out to discover exactly what it meant to be UEP certified not realizing what a herculean task this would be or how confused I would become. Like most, I first searched the internet and found web addresses for uepcertified.com, unitedegg.com, and uepcertified.org. Having a suspicious mind when I find that there is a commercial web address (.com) and a non-profit web address (.org) for the same entity, red flags rise up, and it warrants further investigation. I found that all three are one and the same – promoting corporate ag and caged/non-caged egg production in confinement buildings.

Further confusion came when I read the UEP website, unitedegg.com, and I quote, “United Egg Producers (UEP) is a Capper-Volstead cooperative of egg farmers from all across the United States and representing the ownership of approximately 95% of all the nation’s egg-laying hens.” I didn’t realize that independent farmers were producing the majority of the eggs in this country I thought the eggs came from the vertically integrated system whereby a corporation owns everything except the mortgage on the farm they contract with and the manure their animals produce. I warrant that this needs further investigation, but that’s for another time!

Wading through all of the B.S., and I’m being polite here folks, I came out having to go back a second and third time to figure it all out. I printed out the freely available UEP Animal Husbandry Guidelines for U.S. Egg Laying Flocks which was found on both the .com and .org websites thinking that was the best place to start.

The 31 page document begins with a short history of egg laying chickens starting in the 1940’s and stimulates a not so wonderful picture of “small backyard flocks” producing the majority of eggs for our country at that time. It’s all in the wording folks that will lead you to think that industrial production and caged confined conditions that the corporate types now use are the best thing since sliced bread.

The first item that gave me a good chuckle is the claim that “the modern cage system has eliminated most diseases of the 1940’s, provided the hens with protection against the weather (environmental controlled housing) and predators, while also improving food safety, the environment (air and water), and animal welfare”. My perpetual habit of talking to myself left me wondering aloud “are these people for real”?

Most chicken diseases prevalent in the 1940’s have been eliminated, if not eradicated, due to development of vaccines, not cages. Secondly, “environmental controlled housing” is for the purpose of controlling every aspect of the chicken’s short life and wringing the most production out of the chickens. These people don’t give a hoot about protecting the hens the hens need to be protected from their way of thinking!

The insinuation that the modern cage system has improved food safety made me almost hysterical. Not so long ago a huge egg recall occurred because of salmonella and consumers becoming ill. The record speaks for itself. The companies involved are part of this confined housing caged system and UEP links to their website. I’d be willing to bet that the company is a member of UEP!

The claim of the modern caged system being an improvement for the environment “(air and water)” is more than hysterical. I had to stop reading and thinking for a while because I was simply flabbergasted. One of the talking points of federal legislation that UEP is promoting, H.R. 3798 that amends the Egg Products Inspection Act is – prohibition of “excessive ammonia levels in egg-laying henhouses”.

Highly acclaimed benefits of confined caged laying hens is that tens-of-thousands can be raised in a small amount of space (confinement building). Most often the building takes up less than one acre of land. Naturally, the hens excrete waste in the form of manure and an excessive amount of ammonia is produced. Where does everyone think that ammonia goes? For the benefit of those who don’t know – the excessive amounts of ammonia are released from the confinement houses into the air by way of huge exhaust fans. Not only is the ammonia released into the air, it comes back down onto the land and water as nitrogen making it available for excessive amounts of runoff into our waterways.

Secondly, how in the world does UEP think they are going to be able to stop the hens from excreting waste and producing ammonia inside of a confinement building, caged or not? If the theory of giving more space to the hens, which is included in the legislation I’ve mentioned, everyone better think again. This won’t reduce the number of hens inside buildings. Industry will only build the housing larger to accommodate the same number of hens, if not more.

The part about improving animal welfare gave me indigestion! No matter which way you spin it, a cage is a cage whether it is conventional, enriched, or cage free confinement buildings. The “enriched cage system” is the crux of the entire campaign and unbelievably “HSUS has embraced this which I wrote about in an earlier post. On the flip side evidently HSUS believes that this system will improve conditions for caged laying hens, making a trade-off that anything is better than nothing!

UEP’s Animal Husbandry Guidelines allow for beak trimming citing advantages that may include, and I underline the word “may”, reduced pecking, reduced feather pulling, reduced cannibalism, better feather condition, less fearfulness, less nervousness, less chronic stress, and decreased mortality. What this means is that beak trimming keeps the hens from picking on one another. If the hens weren’t bored to death being confined in a cage they wouldn’t peck on one another they would have other interests in pecking such as worms, bugs, grasses, or other items in the real natural environment.

The drawbacks of beak trimming cited by UEP guidelines are inability to feed, short term pain, perhaps chronic pain, and acute stress. Obviously and in the mind of UEP, these are all fair tradeoff’s in the welfare of the hens so that long term the hens don’t peck one another to death out of boredom from being caged. Never mind that inability to feed or chronic pain is at issue as well. I don’t suppose the thought that the entire method of raising confined caged hens is not in the best interest to the welfare of the animal.

UEP’s talking points for the proposed federal legislation says that it will provide egg laying hens with “nearly” double the space of current conventional cages and add “”enrichments”” such as perches, nesting boxes, and scratching areas that will allow birds to express natural behaviors.” Sounds good when one looks at the words however the hens will still be in cages!

As I’ve evidenced in my great egg adventure, our hens express natural behaviors by running, jumping, flying, perching, flapping their wings at will, dust bathing and digging holes until they are almost covered, foraging for worms, bugs, and grasses and many other antics they decide to participate in. They also have nesting boxes and are able to run freely inside and outdoors. That my friend’s is expressing “natural behaviors”!

Furthermore, and according to UEP, “Today there are approximately 235 egg farmers with flocks of 75,000 hens or more. These farms care for about 95% of the approximately 290,000,000 laying hens in the United States.” How can there be only 235 farms raising 290,000,000 laying hens in this country? I found it impossible to find the number of acres utilized however I think the numbers above are self-explanatory.

I noticed in the many video clips available from UEP that the hen houses and cages are immaculate and promote thoughts of a sterile environment. Anyone who’s ever raised livestock or has been inside of a barn knows that animals naturally defecate however from what UEP is showing their hens must not do it. Quite frankly the inside of the confinement caged hen houses is cleaner than most human populated houses according to the pictures shown. Maybe we should all go and live in hen houses!

In my wanderings through related info and websites I found that UEP had a contact person from GolinHarris for further info about the legislation I’ve mentioned. My first thought was “what’s a GolinHarris”? I took a peek and found a piece of interesting info and decided to look no further because it was enough to figure out what a GolinHarris is -“For our clients, Communicate to Win is a driving force for building, sustaining and protecting corporate brands and reputations around the world.” Of course there’s a lot more words on the website, enough to make my head spin.

UEP is spending big bucks to drive through legislation that will define labeling allowances for eggs – Require labeling on all egg cartons to inform consumers of the methods used to produce the eggs, such as: “”eggs from caged hens,” “eggs from hens in enriched cages,” eggs from cage-free hens,” and “eggs from free range hens.” Aha! Eggs from hens in enriched cages…….. A little too obvious for me! Why anyone in their right mind would think that defining the type of cage or confinement makes it better for the hen’s welfare is beyond me. Doesn’t congress have better things to do than protect those who would mislead consumers into thinking that eggs from “enriched cages” are somehow better?

Land of Confusion – Part III Is It Organic?

The summer has been busy on the farm and has kept me from my favorite pastime – writing! As I’ve been outside working I’ve conjured up all kinds of topics of discussion in our land of confusion called farming. I know, I keep intending to bring the subject of genetics into my next discussion but there are things that keep leading me astray.

A recent article in the New York Times, “Has Organic’ Been Oversized” written by Stephanie Strom on July 7th captured my attention and I’ve been thinking of little else.

What disturbed me the most was the admission by Alexis Baden-Mayer, political director at the Organic Consumers Association saying “I understand that there are very few 100 percent organic businesses left…”. If a consumers association readily admits what has been whispered among us farmers out here trying to the right thing I have to ask myself what’s the point in trying to produce under a label that has been bastardized like the rest of our food system. Is it any wonder that farmers and consumers are confused?

Becoming organic certified is an expensive and time consuming prospect for a farmer. In doing so, farmer’s intention is to produce food for consumers that is free of GMO’s, additives, chemicals, and the list goes on. Traditionally organic has had the implied meaning of food in its purist form.

In 1990 our government set into motion the Organics Food Production Act requiring the U.S Department of Agriculture to develop national standards for organically produced products and to assure consumers that agricultural products sold as organic meet consistent, uniform standards. A National Organic Standards Board was created to make recommendations in the development of organic standards and certification. The 15 member board was to be representative of interested parties: farmer/grower; handler/processor; retailer; consumer/public interest; environmentalist; scientist; and certifying agent. Okay, that sounds easy enough!

At the time organic products were a niche market being produced by farmers labeled as left over hippies and the production and sales didn’t put a dent into the mainstream food market. I distinctly remember in the mid 90’s meeting many of these so called “hippie farmers”. Being part of the industrialized food production world my mindset was not in the same mode as theirs and I wondered why in the world they would create so much more work for their selves on the farm when chemicals could take care of most of the work.

The organic markets began to develop and grow. By 2011 organic products demanded premium prices, consumers had become more aware of where their food was coming from and how it was being produced, and organic food was a $30 billion dollar industry. Consumers wanted better food without all of the junk.

Enter the “big boys” and let the bastardization party begin! Like Mr. Potter in the NY Times article I believe that the “so called organic food” needs to be challenged. I want to know where the protection is for the farmers who are doing all of the right things to be truly organic and where the protection is for the consumer to be totally assured that they are getting the real deal. According to the NY Times story – “Pure, locally produced ingredients from small family farms? Not so much anymore.”

Some believe that the organic standards are being watered down; green washed, and corrupted by corporate agribusiness giants who have entered the organic markets and are industrializing it. When I hear comments from the big boys saying that the demand is greater than the supply and that the demand requires the scale that only they can provide I say “look out”! Faux organics are here and confusion abounds.

This past year, I had reason to question organic and its relationship to raising chickens. I became aware of the fact that if I were to put 10,000 chickens into one of my chicken houses, feed certified organic feed, and allow them access to the outdoors, I could have an organic farm. I didn’t need to worry about the land around the chicken houses because no chemicals had been used over the past 3 years and I could easily fence in a “sun porch” for outside allowance and nothing said that the chickens actually had to go out.

In my mind organic was about much more than just what was fed to the chickens. 10,000 chickens crammed into a confinement house conjured up memories of the days of industrial production. What type of product would I be producing from animals living a miserable existence having only a look at the outdoors but never really experiencing it? The waste created from that many chickens would have to go somewhere.

A friend laughed at my irate comments over this and told me to go to the meeting of the National Organics Standards Board and express my thoughts. Then told me “come back and tell me if they heard you or if they even cared”. Something like – let me know how far you get. I knew it would be a waste of time. After reading the NY Times article and Mr. Potter saying he had done exactly as my friend suggested I do and got nothing but being allowed to speak for 3 minutes and then a “thank you”, I realize that this issue is much bigger. Assuring the integrity of organic food won’t come through government process it will only come from consumers knowing their farmer and seeing how their food is produced.

Maryland Becomes First State to Ban Arsenic In Poultry Feed

Proponents and advocates of banning the use of arsenic in poultry feed in Maryland are celebrating a hard won victory. On May 22, 2012, Maryland Governor, Martin O’Malley, signed into law, legislation banning arsenic in poultry feed. The bill goes into effect January 23, 2013. Maryland is the first state in the country to pass such a bill.

The legislation is a hard won victory for Environmental, Public Health, and Food Safety advocates and three long years of work is worth a celebration. Organizations such as Food and Water Watch, a Washington DC based non-profit appear to have their sights set on other states as well.

The use of arsenic in poultry feed has been a practice since the late 1940’s. Its use was intended for killing coccidiosis an intestinal parasite found in chickens. Referred to as “cocci” in the poultry industry the parasite reproduces in the intestinal tract of chickens and interrupts positive feed conversions raising the cost of production. Side benefits discovered by industry were faster weight gain (growth promoter) and added color. Arsenicals became more important for faster growth rather than killing intestinal parasites.

Mostly unknown to the outside world, arsenic is a routine feed additive for industrially produced chickens no matter if cocci is present or not or diagnosed by a veterinarian. Thinking back to my days of industrial chicken production there was a time when the higher ups of the company we contracted with told us we had a cocci problem. This went on for several months until we asked for a visit from the company vet. After having that visit and the company vet telling us we didn’t have a cocci problem feed conversion issues disappeared. Arsenic in the feed delivered by the company didn’t disappear as it continued to arrive in the company feed.

Banning the use of arsenic in poultry feed and specifically mentioning Roxarsone, is a great first step. I worry about this piece of legislation because there are ways around it. Loopholes!

Arsenicals are available in liquid form and can be delivered through the drinking water. Since the Maryland legislation specifies “feed”, industry in its infinite wisdom could use water administration of arsenic.

The legislation also specifies “commercial feed” and one wonders what the definition is for those words. Theoretically, there is no buying or selling of feed within the relationship between a poultry company and the farmers it contracts with. Although feed usage is used in the complicated formula administered by the company to pay farmers at the end of the flock there are no actual cash transactions when the company delivers feed to the farm. Technically, the company owns the feed.

Secondly, feed formulation is a “trade secret” and is proprietary information of the company. How will any government agency have authority to test feed ingredients? Claiming TOP SECRET will be a way out for poultry companies.

I have to applaud Maryland legislators in their efforts. However after the applause dies down, there are issues left in the dust.

I was particularly surprised with concerns listed over the use of arsenic and concerns excluded. The law specifies that it will be “abrogated and of no further force and effect if a specific arsenical additive receives approval by the US Food and Drug Administration if it includes evaluation of human food safety, impact on the environment, safety to animals, effectiveness of drug for its intended use, and chemistry and manufacturing procedures”.

Nowhere is there any mention of the effects on the farmers who are forced to be exposed to arsenic on a daily basis having no choice or say in what the company delivers to the farm. I gave testimony before the Maryland Senate committee hearing asking legislators to pass the bill for the sake of the farmer who has no choice in the matter. Quite frankly, I don’t believe that legislators are informed or had delved into the company/farmer contract relationship or how that system works.

The tangled web of how the poultry industry operates is nearly impossible to figure out unless one has operated within it. I look for future battles over the current law and judiciary proceedings over the loopholes that the Einstein’s within the poultry industry will use.

The Land of Confusion

I recently had a conversation with a visitor to the farm which made me think about how confusing different methods of farming can be for the average person. My visitor was clearly confused and after taking a hard look at the situation I could see why.

Since our conversation started out about our transition here on the farm from industrial confinement production of meat chickens to a pasture raised egg farm I’ll start with that.

Confinement operations in animal production are easily understood. The word “confinement” means exactly what it says. It is limited or restricted space of which one is unable to leave.

To put it into perspective, people are confined to places such as a jail. Most of us have heard some time in our life “go to your room”. That could be summed up as being restricted to the confines of ones bedroom as a method of punishment for bad behavior as a child.

In animal production confinement isn’t for the purpose of being punished for bad behavior. The main purpose is to have absolute control over the production of the animal whether it’s products such as milk or eggs or putting on pounds of meat, quickly. Confined production is basically designed for “efficiency”. Efficiency translates into profits.

In the case of meat chickens efficiency can be measured in restricting movement which would expend energy and in turn use more feed to put pounds of meat on the chicken. Saved feed reduces the cost of production which in turn raises profits.

Confining hens for egg laying is usually done by not only confining the chicken to a building but also confining the chicken to a cage. Sometimes the cages are stacked on top of one another. Life for the hens in cages is one which prohibits natural behaviors of chickens such as spreading of wings, dust bathing, and freedom of walking, running, or flying. Over 90 percent of all eggs produced in the US come from caged hens.

I’ve made my thoughts clear about caged hens in the past HSUS Takes a Dive Off of the Deep End! . The newest trend in industrial egg production is to put a fancy name on a cage. This is where the confusion comes in to play and it’s exactly what industrial agriculture corporate giants want.

Calling the new and better (not my choice of words) “enriched colony caging” for hens is supposed to conjure up a pretty picture in one’s mind. According to Merriam-Webster, “enrich” means to make rich or richer especially by the addition or increase of some desirable quality, attribute, or ingredient. If we were to take a look at this definition, proponents of caging hens could say that this is what has happened.

In reality, a cage is a cage no matter what fancy term is applied. Anyone who advocates for good husbandry practices or high welfare for farm animals should cringe. However that isn’t the case as we all know that HSUS has called it a landmark agreement between animal welfare advocates and the United Egg Producers (UEP). Thankfully, there are animal welfare advocates who haven’t caved in to industrial ag and HSUS should speak for its self.

Landmark agreements always come at a cost. No big deal, right! HSUS and UEP get to say that they did something great in compromising and this monumental move didn’t cost them anything. No indeed, it cost the hens!

Is it any wonder why the average person would be confused? It’s all about a play on words and what pictures those words present to the consumer. Before producing our own eggs I always looked for the word’s “cage free” when grocery shopping. That’s not to say that the hens are raised unconfined it just means that they aren’t also put into cages.

Recently, my friends at Flavor Magazine published an article about eggs. I suggest reading it to get a better idea of the mindset behind egg production and how the hens that produce the eggs should be raised depending on who is doing the talking.

Since we’ve gone to “pasture raised” another dilemma arises in the farming method confusion. My visitor was under the impression that “pasture raised” and “free range” are the same. Not so! This subject gets real fuzzy and will have to wait until my next post about the land of confusion.

Independent Contractor – to be or not to be?

My last post about Waterkeeper Alliance vs. Perdue and Allen and Kristin Hudson brought out many issues associated with the case. The saga continues………..

The lawsuit is about pollutants finding their way to drainage ditches surrounding a chicken CAFO owned by the Hudson’s into a tributary of the Pocomoke River and eventually the Chesapeake Bay. It also questions ownership and responsibility of the waste discharged from the farm naming Perdue as the legal owner of the chickens that produce the waste.

On November 17, 2011 both sides in the case filed a motion for summary judgment and in doing so many legal documents in the case were made available to the public. Public perusal of these court records brings to light many other issues.

It’s hard for me to decide which of the other issues to start with.

Independent contractor status is a good place to begin. Contract poultry growers (chicken farmers) are classified as independent contractors by the companies they contract with to raise company owned chickens. The job of the farmer is to receive company chickens and raise them to a marketable age – PERIOD.

Not to put the chicken before the egg we have to look at where these contract chickens originate. It’s a complex web to untangle and there are many company steps involved before ever getting to the chicks placed on farms and grown. What is known is that the company designs, through genetic selection and engineering, what the final chicken will be. When placed on contract farms, the farmer has no choice or idea about the genetics, performance in growing of the chicken, or how much manure that chicken will produce.

Prior to chicks being placed on contract farms feed is delivered to the farm. This feed is formulated, mixed and delivered by the company. Feed ingredients are unknown to the famer and are a closely guarded secret claimed by companies to be a “trade secret”. The amount of feed delivered to the farm is unverifiable by the farmer and (s)he has to accept on “good faith” that the feed is what the company says it is. There are no options for contract farmers to acquire feed from another source because the contracts stipulate that feed comes from the company. This feed delivery process continues throughout the entire life cycle of the flock.

I have to insert here a few facts about the feed. Most people don’t understand that feed ingredient’s such as antibiotics/antimicrobials and arsenic isn’t the farmer’s choice to use or not use. This pertains to animal by-products in feed as well. Everything that goes into feed is decided by the chicken company and must be accepted and used by the farmer. Should a farmer decide to acquire feed from another source the farmer’s contract will be terminated.

The chicks delivered to contract farms derive from company owned hatcheries where the eggs are hatched into chicks. During the process at the company hatchery certain procedures could be performed such as in ovo injections of vaccines and antibiotics. In ovo is a process of injecting eggs before hatching and it’s anyone’s guess as to what is injected. Another company secret of which the farmer has no control over!

It could be assumed that the independent contractor, the farmer, comes into play once the chicks are on the farm for growing. That theory might hold water if the company only delivered the chicks and disappeared out of the raising process and returned to pick up the grown chickens for processing.

Throughout the flock company employees routinely come to the farm and manage the methods in which the farmer is raising the chickens. Court documents in the lawsuit revealed a company employee went so far as to leaving written instructions saying “need to work on these things ASAP’ and then listing things to be done. Some “notes” left by Perdue gave deadlines on work to be done and many notes referred to telling the farmer to do “heavy culling” (kill many chickens). If that is not telling the farmer what work to do, I’m at a loss to say what it is!

Other notes revealed that a Perdue employee set or adjusted equipment within the chicken house, moved fans around, culled chickens, and preformed many other tasks required in raising the chickens to a marketable age. These things are the job of the independent contractor not a company employee.

Again, I have to stop here and raise a question. Suppose some disaster should occur inside the chicken house because of the Perdue employee making a mistake in equipment adjustments such as ventilation and all of the chickens die (smother) – who would be responsible for the disaster? It’s my guess the blame would be laid at the farmer’s feet and income loss would be the farmer’s bitter pill to swallow. Having been a contract farmer I say this with ease because everything is always the farmers fault according to the company and there is no recourse for the farmer.

Reading court documents revealed that Perdue routinely performed farm operations inside of the chicken houses. It’s argued that the Perdue employee and Mr. Hudson had an understanding about this. The only time that I’m aware of the company coming on the farm, performing the daily tasks of the farmer, and caring for the flock would be if the company declared that the farmer was not doing his job and that the company was taking over. There is a clause in the contract that says that the company has the right to do that. However there are no supporting documents that say that Perdue made any such declaration or decision to take over the raising of the chickens on the Hudson farm.

Farmers have argued for a very long time that they aren’t independent contractors in their relationship with chicken companies. Independent – somebody or something that is free from control, dependence, or interference. Looking over court documents it’s clear that Perdue has some other definition of “independent”.

I remember a time in the early 1990’s Perdue declared all of its chicken catchers to be independent contractors. In the late 1990’s a lawsuit was filed against the company claiming that the chicken catchers were employees of the company not independent contractors. The lawsuit prevailed and a Federal Court found in favor of the chicken catcher’s. If memory serves me correctly, the court found Perdue willful in dealings with the chicken catchers.

Might Perdue also be willful in dealings with contract farmers?

Relevant legal documents and court pleadings