Lewis Bollard

And so I think it really is a bit of a bait and switch where they claim to be representing those family farmers, but they're not.

Yeah, so it depends.

I mean, for some people, it is just the least bad option they have, right?

And especially if someone just has a little wee bit of land and they want to preserve that land and they don't have other skills they can use.

But, you know, I mean, I was chatting with this guy, Craig Watts, who was a chicken contract farmer for Purdue.

And he told me that when he got into the business...

they made all these exorbitant claims to him.

I mean, they said, you're going to be making over $100,000 within years.

They said, just get out this loan and it's going to be incredible to them, all the things that could go right.

And then he got into the business and they slowly started eroding the payments to him.

So they slowly started paying him less and less.

They slowly got to a point where he was making less and less money and he wanted out.

But by that point, he couldn't get out because he had this giant loan hanging over his head.

And so I do think you've got a bunch of people who are stuck in the situation and there aren't easy alternatives because normally in one area, there will only be one processor that has a slaughterhouse in that area.

So there's not effective competition going on.

Also, often you're locked in these long-term contracts as well.

So there is an element of people being locked in this, and then there's an element of people just not having better choices.

I mean, I think ideally we would see pasture-based farming in those places.

And, you know, it doesn't require that much land, for instance, to have a pasture-based chicken farm.

The problem is you would need to find a processor that you could work with.