Critics say Claxton Poultry expansion won't be windfall for
farmers or the environment around Okefenokee Swamp.
By Lori Henson - Savannah Morning News - August 16, 1999
BELLVILLE -- Joel Thompson is protective of his flock.
When visitors come to poke their heads into his 20,000-square-foot
hen houses, they must first submit to Thompson's precautionary measures.
"You have to put this on," he says, an amused smile on his face
and a bright-blue paper-thin jump suit and clear plastic overshoes in
his hand.
Then, wiping the sweat from beneath his camouflage hat, he opens
the door into a squawking, flapping crowd of 10,000 hens and 800
roosters.
The hens are all featherless in back from weeks of breeding. They
start just after their 4 a.m. feeding and go silent when the lights go
out at 9 p.m. Their eggs roll from their gray metal nests onto a
conveyor belt. They are then packed, stored in a cooling house and end
up in a hatchery in Glennville that supplies chicks to broiler houses.
The broiler houses then fatten the birds until they are slaughtered.
A cool breeze moves the dusty cobwebs that hang like Spanish moss
from the ceiling and lights of the building. The 85-degree room
temperature is the result of eight fans that pull air through a cool,
damp corrugated paper pad on either side of the 50-foot-long building.
The cooling system, now common in chicken houses, has reduced
summer heat deaths greatly at Thompson's farm to about four to 10 birds
per day.
The precautions against heat and potential disease protect more
than just the chickens and their 15,000-30,000 eggs per day. They
protect Thompson's income in a year when his cotton and peanuts aren't
bringing enough on the market to pay his bills.
"It's cash flow every month, every six weeks," he said. "You've
got to have something to help back you up."
The profit puzzle
Consistent cash flow is a prospect that has farmers in Waycross
excited. Claxton Poultry, which contracts with Thompson, has announced
plans for a $50 million processing plant in Waycross, a chicken hatchery
in Blackshear and a feed mill in Surrency. The company will hire at
least 150 farmers to supply the plant.
But environmentalists and industry representatives say farmers may
not know what they're getting themselves into with contract poultry
growing.
Becky Eddington, president of the Georgia Contract Poultry
Growers' Association, said inexperienced poultry farmers need to know
the capital investment and risks involved with contracting to grow
poultry.
"Farmers go into contract poultry production and they really don't
have the right information. They think they're going to make a lot of
money," said Eddington, who lives in Maysville. "We have a nice farm and
a nice house. But I'm a nurse and my husband is a retired firefighter.
We live off that."
She knows farmers who have accumulated massive debt to build and
improve broiler houses that average about $140,000 apiece. The
improvements are necessary for farmers to get the best annual contract,
she said.
Thompson says his 10-year partnership with Claxton Poultry has
gone smoothly, but says he did some research into costs and risks before
he started.
"I have no regrets about it. ... There's not a guarantee on
anything. There's no guarantee I'm going to make a cotton crop," he
said. But with Claxton Poultry, "I don't know of any problem that hasn't
been resolved."
Waste not
One of the problems environmentalists fear will come with the new
Claxton Poultry plant is the waste produced by as many as 400 chicken
houses that will supply the plant.
Thompson's 40,000 chickens produce between 100 to 125 tons of
waste per year. The waste, called "litter," is dried and used as
fertilizer on Thompson's and his neighbors' fields.
Broiler house waste comes out dry and can be piled up, composted
and used as fertilizer. Thompson saves about $8,000-$10,000 per year
using his chickens' waste and selling it to his neighboring farmers.
But David Kyler of the Coastal Georgia Center for Sustainable
Development in Darien said inexperienced farmers can create
environmental havoc if they don't keep the litter and dead chickens out
of the weather and away from ground water.
"If stored properly, it's not a problem," he said. "But litter is
often stored in open air and exposed to weather. It can also be applied
inappropriately to wet ground," he said.
Since the Georgia Environmental Protection Division does not yet
have regulations for poultry farm waste management, Kyler and attorney
Justine Thompson of the Southern Environmental Law Center in Tifton say
a public discussion needs to address the waste issue.
"We try to be fact-driven and not (act on) knee-jerk reactions,"
Kyler said. "But this needs to be exposed to public scrutiny.
Evans County, home to most of Claxton Poultry's current suppliers,
has had no problems with waste storage, since there is rarely a surplus,
said county Extension Agent Mike Dollar.
"At this point, we're almost at equilibrium," Dollar said. "With a
very few exceptions, it's used on a timely basis ... because we have so
much land available to fertilize."
But Justine Thompson said farmers who are unprepared for the
responsibility a contract entails may not get off to such a smooth start
around the Okefenokee Swamp area.
"Our concern is that they (poultry processors) are going to make
growers 100 percent responsible for not only the litter, but the dead
birds," she said.
The Southern Environmental Law Center was one of the major
opponents to the expansion of the hog industry in Georgia, as well.
Treatment of animal waste is one of the its major environmental
concerns.
What's next
Justine Thompson and Kyler say they'll keep pushing for a public
discussion of the risks of large-scale poultry production.
But Jerry Davis, a spokesman for Claxton Poultry, said once people
realize what the company's methods are, he expects concerns to ease.
"We deal with an all-natural product. It is in our interest to be
environmentally friendly. Our commitment to the Waycross area is to be a
good environmental citizen," Davis said.
Residents around Waycross are, for the most part, grateful for the
more than 1,100 jobs the plant will bring when it opens in September
2000. Even if most the jobs pay only $5.40 to $8 per hour.
Southeast Georgia's unemployment rate in June was 5.5 percent,
compared to the state average of 4.1 percent. The Okefenokee area has
been especially stagnate in job growth, said Stock Coleman, executive
director of the Okefenokee Area Development Authority.
"We have not had any growth here," he said. "We feel very
fortunate to have Claxton come here. It gives our tobacco farmers a
chance to diversify."
Coleman said the plant should provide opportunities for other
businesses that will support it, such as restaurants, gas stations and
grocery stores.
Joel Thompson said his modest farm of four chicken houses and the
profit he's made is proof that, with good business sense and hard work,
the Waycross farmers can be encouraged by the opportunity to profit from
poultry.
"They've been mighty good to me," he said. "As long as you have
open communication, in any business, it'll be a success. They're not out
to get the farmer."
About Claxton Poultry:
- The company was founded by Savannah native Norman Fries in 1959.
- It is the 28th largest broiler chicken producer in the United
States.
- Its Claxton plant processes about 1.3 million chickens per week.
- The company's primary market is the Southeastern United States.
- It is privately held and family-owned.
- Jerry Lane was appointed president of Claxton Poultry Farms in
1998.
Poultry's profit
Georgia leads the nation in poultry production, beating out its
nearest rival, Arkansas, for the past two years.
Georgia growers produced 1.2 billion birds, with a total weight of
5.9 billion pounds and a value of $2.4 billion, according to the U.S.
Department of Agriculture.
Agriculture and forestry reporter Lori Henson can be reached at
(912) 764-4000.
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