One chicken farmer that who was interviewed rolls down the window of his truck takes a big breath of “fresh” air and says “smells like money”. This is a man that loves what he does and knows that big chicken producers is what gives him the chance of staying afloat, and not having to sell his farm land. This, for the most part, represents the chicken farmers that I grew up with, know and love. Though I have never met one with 16 chicken houses, most families have 3 chicken houses and a lot of them do other farming as well like corn and soybeans.
Another chicken farmer interviewed has an old style open chicken house that hates what she does, which is no doubt due to the fact that the company wants her to switch to a modern chicken house. At the end of her segment they say that because she refused to change her chicken house, the company is no longer working with her. Here is the thing, it doesn’t matter if you are producing chickens or cars, a big manufacturer needs everyone to be doing and using the same things, that is just the price you pay for constancy.
The bottom line is that we have a supply and demand issue; there are a lot of people in this world that we need to supply food for. While the documentary shows immigrants eating fast food because that is all they can afford, I can tell you first hand as someone who knows many 1st generation American families; they never eat fast food and can make their food budget of stretch farther then you can imagine. All of our food has been genetically modified beyond recognition to make it grow faster and produce more (this will be discussed in my next blog).
The only way to insure the standard of what you eat is to grow it yourself or have a close relationship to the farmers that do. One day I plan on having my farm and I will have my own chickens running around, but for right now I go to the store and get regular old chicken because that is what my budget allows.
With the recent donation that Perdue made to the food bank I fully support them in an effort to end hunger. I would love to see everyone that has a moral objection to the way these chickens are raised, take the cost difference of organic free range birds and a regular old bird (you don’t have to switch which one you eat) and donate that money to your local food bank, because if a chicken means so much surely your fellow human would at least mean the same.
