/ &87" $ 1 , ) ( $.( 7+ ) DQG ĂŁQG RXW 0 / / , :+2 : 21' &+( U ',$0 IR MRLQ XV / / $ 6 ( . 7$ ( 7 ( 3 0 2 & 6 ) &+( 0 3 ( / 167,787 6 $35, (0(17 , 7+85 $1$* $/,7< 0 ,7 3 6 2 + < $576 H URFN 5,1.6 Ă“ OLWWO &8/,1$5 ( 7 &+() ' $ ( 7 5 6 8 5 7 ( $ 7 1 1 , 16 6,* 67$7,2 ' 2 2 ) < 5 &8/,1$ 0$67(5 &+() 63216256 0(',$ 63216256 &+() de &8,6,1( 63216256 +,/$1' '$,5< 8 6 )22'6 $//(*5$ 35,17,1* */$=(5ĂŒ6 &:3 352'8&7,216 :,1( 38// 6321625 2ĂŒ/221(<ĂŒ6 &8/,1$5,$1 63216256 8$06 &2&$ &2/$ $5.$16$6 62<%($1 %2$5' :(6752&. &2))(( &21*(5 :($/7+ 0$1$*(0(17 <$<$ĂŒ6 (852 %,6752 6,00216 %$1. ),567 $5.$16$6 %$1. $1' 75867 0$5. )219,//( 3+272*5$3+< &$3,7$/ +27(/ +$1.ĂŒ6 ),1( )851,785( /(*$&< 7(50,7( $1' 3(67 &21752/ 3URFHHGV EHQHĂŁW WKH SURJUDPV DQG VWXGHQWV RI 37& )RU GHWDLOV DQG WLFNHWV PJUDLQJHU#SXODVNLWHFK HGX ZZZ SXODVNLWHFK HGX GLDPRQGFKHI 16 MARCH 10, 2016 ARKANSASâ€ˆTIMES of chicken by limiting the national supply. A $26 million award to growers in the area was later reversed by a threejudge panel on appeal. Arkansas Times spoke with several contract chicken growers who were caught up in the aftermath of the sudden closure of the Pilgrimâ€™s Pride plant. Back to growing chickens for a different poultry company for the first time since 2009, those we spoke to all requested anonymity, saying they worried that talking to a reporter about their operations might jeopardize their current contracts and their livelihoods. Over the past month, the Times attempted to contact a half-dozen growers across the state through intermediaries. Citing the same concerns over their contracts, the others we contacted refused to talk on the record, even anonymously. Henry (not his real name) has been a contract chicken grower since the early 1990s. He said he got into it to make a living and work his own hours, which, he said with a laugh, turned out to be 24 hours a day. Recently, he got the first new batch of chickens in his houses in over five years, having hung on through the drought, unlike many local growers. â€œIâ€™ve told people a lot,â€? he said, â€œon Feb. 26, [2009] these houses of mine were worth a half million dollars, no problem. Two days later, they were worth nothing. Zero. You couldnâ€™t give them away.â€? He said that right up until the processing plant in El Dorado was shuttered, the company was encouraging growers to go into debt to make costly upgrades to their houses. One young grower he knew had gone into over $1 million in debt to build four houses a year and a half before the closure of the plant, putting up a farm that had been in his family for three generations as collateral on a loan that required payments of over $7,000 a month. After Pilgrimâ€™s closed the plant and the chickens stopped coming, the bank eventually foreclosed on the farm. The young man has since found work out of state. â€œWhen youâ€™re talking about $15,000 every two months,â€? Henry said, â€œyou canâ€™t work for nobody else for a job and pay that kind of note, unless youâ€™ve got a law degree or something.â€? Asked about the tournament pay system, Henry says poultry companies often sell prospective growers on the idea that theyâ€™ll always receive â€œtop payâ€? â€” what theyâ€™ll make if theyâ€™re at the top of the tournament every batch. He hasnâ€™t been disappointed in the living heâ€™s made as a chicken grower, he said, because he figured on making aver- age pay from the start. â€œSometimes youâ€™re going to be on the bottom,â€? he said. â€œI donâ€™t care how hard you try or what kind of birds you get. And a lot depends on the kind of birds you get. Chicken companies donâ€™t like to hear that, but thatâ€™s facts.â€? Asked how much he is able to profit from a single batch of chickens, Henry said there are a lot of factors that come into play when it comes to answering that question. To prove his point, he held up a 10-inch tractor fuel line heâ€™d picked up that morning from the parts store; just shy of $75, he said, but vital to keeping the farm going. For want of a nail, and all that. â€œOne of the things that people donâ€™t really understand [about chicken growing] is how much it costs and how much youâ€™ve got to spend,â€? he said. â€œKeeping up tractors, keeping up generators, keeping up all the equipment.â€? In order to clean out the chicken houses after each batch requires a $30,000 machine and a $50,000 tractor to pull it, he said, plus chains, tractor draw bars, tires, diesel fuel, oil, filters and everything else. In the summertime, keeping the houses cool requires a series of â€œcool cellsâ€? â€” foot-wide cardboard honeycombs kept constantly moist, which cool the air entering the houses by as much as 20 degrees. Each cool cell lasts for two to three years and costs $20. Each house requires 120 of them. Have an extended cold snap in the winter, Henry said, and he might wind up burning twice as much propane growing one batch of birds as he might another. Lightning strikes. Disease. A bad batch of chicks from the get-go. All just one of the hundreds of ways Mother Nature can tap dance on his bottom line. â€œI have paid $1,000 a batch for [heating] fuel,â€? he said, â€œand I have paid $6,000 a batch for fuel, depending on how cold it is when you get those birds.â€? Asked about some growersâ€™ reports â€” as seen in the documentary short â€œThe Sharecroppers,â€? which formed the core of a segment on contact chicken farming last year on HBOâ€™s â€œLast Week Tonight With John Oliverâ€? â€” that those growers who spoke out against poultry companies were retaliated against by being purposely given bad chicks, Henry said that there is a large percentage of growers who genuinely hate the chicken business and love to gripe about it. He said that while getting a batch of bad chicks is a reality of life as a grower, he doesnâ€™t believe itâ€™s possible for a company to purposely select a batch of substandard chicks to send to a â€œproblemâ€? grower.