Craig Watts grew up on a small family farm in Fairmont, North Carolina. His parents grew tobacco, which earned the family a decent living, and Watts decided he wanted to become a farmer as well. He decided to use the land that had been in his family for hundreds of years to raise chickens. He discovered, fairly quickly, that it was an experience unlike anything he was prepared for.

Watts was a contract farmer. As such, he was beholden to his employer. He had to follow Perdue Farm’s specifications on how to raise and house his birds—even if he didn’t agree with it. To promote efficiency, for instance, Perdue mandated that Watts crowd his birds into giant, windowless barns. 

The result was disastrous, for the chickens as well as for Watts. The combination of tens of thousands of chickens generating particulate matter and gases and confined in poorly ventilated buildings can cause respiratory issues in workers. The chickens also suffered; the trapped heat combined with the ammonia emitted by waste is so intense it actually burns their chests. “There’ll be no feathers on their chest with these industrial chickens,” says Watts. “That’s just standard.” 

Even if they did have space to run, industrially raised chickens are bred to grow so quickly that their organs regularly rupture and their bones break. Since they can barely hold up their own weight they spend much of their lives sitting in a mix of feces, feathers, and bedding called chicken litter.

For 22 years, Watts tried to make it work. Even though he didn’t like the job, he needed to recover the money he’d invested in the chickens when he signed on with Perdue. But despite being recognized as a top producer, Watts made next to nothing. For one thing, he didn’t own his own chickens. The company did. 

“I didn’t lose any sleep when we farmed before chickens,” says Watts, “but I lost a lot of sleep afterwards. There is no profit for chickens.”

Watts reached his breaking point after he noticed the difference between the way Perdue presents chickens to the public, and the reality. To make their methods appear to be more humane, for example, Perdue touts meaningless labels like “cage-free” and “no hormones added.” In truth, chickens bred for meat are not raised in cages, and adding hormones is illegal. Watts could no longer bear the dishonesty.  

Right around this time, Watts was introduced to Leah Garcés, the executive director of Mercy for Animals (MFA)—then with Compassion in World Farming. When she asked if he’d allow his barns to be filmed to expose the reality of contract chicken farming, he agreed. 

The video went viral, revealing to the public the rarely seen truth of chicken production, and Watts’s story was featured in the New York Times. In return for going public with his concerns, Watts says he received a retaliatory increase in farm inspections from Perdue. After raising a few more flocks, he quit.

Watts’s experience is far from unique. He says the contract farmers he meets are generally miserable. Many, like Watts, didn’t know what they were getting into. Some just wanted the opportunity to stay on their family’s land. “They were sold something that has not happened,” he says. “They were lied to.”

In the years since Watts’ parents raised crops on their own land, under their own management, corporations have steadily edged out family farms. Poultry companies introduced the contracting model in 1950 in a move to stabilize pricing as the taste for chicken in this country took off. Only eight years later, 90 percent of poultry farmers were raising their birds under contract.

But industry observers note that what really upset farming was the Reagan administration’s decision to narrow antitrust laws in 1981 to promote “consumer welfare,” rather than promote competition by maintaining open markets. The move encouraged a series of mergers and today, only a handful of companies dominate poultry production, which means they call all the shots, including the price a farmer receives for chickens. This isn’t just happening with chickens; it’s happening in the pig, cattle, and dairy industries, as well.

To start raising chickens for corporations, farmers must sign contracts and make large initial investments in equipment and infrastructure. Farmers take this on with the expectation that they will pay off their debts, but initial investments can balloon to huge sums. In 2011, poultry contract growers were carrying $5.2 billion in total debt.

“The farmers are basically turned into serfs with a mortgage,” says Watts. The numbers bear him out. In 2014, 71 percent of poultry growers in the United States lived below the federal poverty level. 

Financial issues motivate farmers to leave poultry farming but are also among the main obstacles to getting out. “Probably the biggest barrier that most farmers face is their level of debt,” says Jamie Berger, who works with Mercy for Animals. “It’s just an extraordinary burden that makes any kind of transition very difficult.” 

This pain point is the focus of Transfarmation, a program set up by MFA to help farmers shift from animal agriculture to a more sustainable line of work. “The number one reason farmers are interested in transitioning to plant-based agriculture and moving away from industrial animal agriculture,” says Berger, who oversees the program, “is just the contract farming system itself.”

Transfarmation helps farmers realize more profits as well. For some farmers this means devoting only a small portion of their operation to plants. But even that small gesture—converting space in one of their barns to growing mushrooms, say, or hemp—can improve the financial outcome for farmers. “The difference in potential profit is enormous,” says Berger.

Four years after Watts gave up contract farming, he is in the process of converting his poultry farm into a mushroom farm. He has successfully conducted a pilot project and is beginning to scale up his mushroom growing operation. Transfarmation connected him with a mushroom expert to advise him on the process. It’s also filming Watts’ experience so it can be shared with other farmers, and the public. 

Berger hopes Watts can show viewers what a better alternative to industrial farming can look like, and attract farmers and funding to the program. Only two years old, it’s aiming to help 20 farmers transition this year and has adopted a series of initiatives to grow the program next year, and beyond.

To expand its admittedly narrow reach, Mercy for Animals’s government affairs team is advocating for policy change at the state and federal level. Berger and others see reducing contract farmers burden of debt through policy solutions as a critical component to making these transitions more widespread. Ultimately, the team is working to shift policy incentives away from industrial farming and towards plant-based farming. 

The Transfarmation team is up against enormous odds in the form of a deeply entrenched factory farming system. But it hopes the stories that participating farmers will tell can both highlight the terrible conditions that so many farmers, and their flocks, experience and provide inspiration to those who want to find a better way. 

Watts is all in. “You’ve got to have something that’s good for the farmer, good for the animal, good for the environment, good for the consumer, good for the community,” he says. He says he doesn’t have all the answers, but he has found a way to a better life for himself, and with the help of Transfarmation, is working to help other farmers achieve the same.

Audrey Miller is a Stone Pier Press News Fellow based in Berkeley, CA.

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