350,000 pigs and 270 new contract growers later, a company by the name of Cornerstone Systems, working with the Pendleton-based Hill Meats is hoping to bring pork production into full swing in the eastern part of the state.
But before you get your feathers all ruffled about pigs and people, it's important to know that this company isn't planning to move your typical nasty, inhumane, polluting hog factories into our state. Instead, Cornerstone Systems is planning to use an alternative system of raising pigs, called the deep-bedded hoop house. (see below)
The deep-bedded hoop house is a humane system for raising pigs that has been perfected in Europe and been hailed by environmental and animal welfare advocates as an acceptable system for raising hogs.
Unlike the factory farm model, the pigs living in deep-beded hoop houses enjoy straw for bedding and the ability to interact and frolic like pigs should. Because pigs are able to socialize, they aren't stressed and therefore don't require antibiotics or growth hormones to be kept alive and to gain weight - making the meat better for consumers. And because the pigs are bedded down, the straw absorbs hydrogen sulfide and ammonia gases in the manure and urine, which are smelly and toxic to human health at high concentrations - so neighbors remain happy!
SO WHAT"S THE PROBLEM???????
Vertical Integration is the problem.
In conjunction with Hill Meats, Cornerstone Systems is planning to find 270 contract-growers to care for their 350,000 hogs. What exactly does that mean?
Well in a vertically-integrated, or contract-growing agreement, the company owns the animals, they own the feed, and they tell the grower when to feed the pigs and when the pigs are ready for slaughter.
The grower is responsible for building the housing for the animals (which usually means going into debt to the tune of hundreds of thousands of dollars), dealing with the waste and dealing with the dead animals. And if there are any problems, the company is absolved of all responsibility.
The problem with these types of agreements is that the growers are forced to assume mega-debt to build the infrastructure to grow the animals. Then the contract growers are heavily reliant on the company to ensure that they are getting a paycheck at the end of the day. If anything goes wrong, the company is able to terminate the agreement and the grower is stuck with monstrous debt, a bunch of animals and no where to sell their animals resulting in trouble with the bank.
In the case with the Cornerstone deal, once independent farmers will have to become indentured to the company if they want to raise hogs for Hill Meats. Farmers will have to put their independence and livelihood on the line and assume risk and debt. And Hill Meats will also be investing millions to expand.
What risk does Cornerstone Systems assume? That's a good question and we'd like to know.
We at the Apple Cart see a model where everyone else is getting the short-end of the stick, and a large company is making bank by raking in the cash.
Cornerstone claims that they prefer to call their model "coordination." We say you can put lipstick on vertical integration and in the end it's still a system that's bad for the farmer and bad for the rural communities.
Oh, and not to mention we'll then have an infrastructure for those nasty pork facilities that we referenced earlier to move into our state!
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