Chicken Big

Future Perfect

Vox Media Podcast Network

Politics, Society & Culture, Philosophy, Tech News, News

4.5 • 622 Ratings

🗓️ 30 September 2020

⏱️ 28 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

In 1992, Craig Watts got into growing chickens for Perdue Farms because he was told he could turn a good profit. Instead, he found himself hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt, and unable to bargain for better working conditions because Perdue was the only game in town. Things seemed hopeless, until, in 2010, President Obama’s Department of Justice announced that they were going to look into the relationship between big poultry companies and their growers. In this episode, reporter Leah Douglas tells us how farmers like Craig fought to change the balance of power in chicken growing a decade ago — and what has happened since. Further listening and reading: In his book The Meat Racket, Christopher Leonard outlines the problems with contract poultry growing in much more depth, and goes into the history of the practice. Leah Douglas and Christopher Leonard also did a recent, in-depth investigation into problems with the US chicken industry’s treatment of farmers. You can watch the Department of Justice public workshops for yourself, or read transcripts, all available here. The National Chicken Council has compiled an FAQ that pushes back on claims that poultry growers have problems. We always want to hear from you! Please send comments and questions to [email protected]. Subscribe to Future Perfect on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or your favorite podcast app to automatically get new episodes of the latest season each week. This podcast is made possible thanks to support from Animal Charity Evaluators. They research and promote the most effective ways to help animals. Featuring: Byrd Pinkerton (@byrdala), podcast producer, Vox Leah Douglas (@leahjdouglas), reporter, Food and Environment Reporting Network Host: Dylan Matthews (@dylanmatt), senior correspondent, Vox More to explore: Follow all of Future Perfect’s reporting on the Future of Meat. Subscribe to Vox’s Future Perfect newsletter, which breaks down big, complicated problems the world faces and the most efficient ways to solve them. Follow Us: Vox.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	avoiding your unfinished home projects because you're not sure where to start.
0:04.6	Thumbtack knows homes, so you don't have to.
0:07.6	Don't know the difference between matte paint finish and satin,
0:10.9	or what that clunking sound from your dryer is.
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0:16.6	You just have to hire one.
0:17.6	You can hire top-rated pros, see price estimates, and read reviews all on the app.
0:23.7	Download today.
0:25.9	So how would you describe yourself?
0:28.0	What would you want people to know about Craig Watts?
0:30.7	Oh, my gosh.
0:32.6	It's like asking me my own phone number.
0:34.4	I don't call it enough to know.
0:35.9	But here's what we want you to know about Craig. He's a North Carolina farmer who used to raise chickens for meat. A recovering
0:43.0	poultry girl, that's correct. Craig's story begins a few decades ago. He had gone to business school,
0:50.3	he worked and traveled for a bit, but by 1992, he was ready to return to his family's farm.
0:55.6	Right at that moment was when the poultry companies were advertising in the newspaper to raise their birds.
1:02.2	They were just saying that, you know, we're coming to town and we're building a plant.
1:05.9	I think the phrase was, we need some smart birds to raise our birds.
1:10.0	It sounded pretty easy.
1:11.7	He'd raised the chickens and the company would take them away to be slaughtered and sold.
1:15.3	They had a representative for the company that came out and kind of gave us the, I call them
	...

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