Tees for Animal Lover
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The idea of chickens scratching and pecking away at the soil and grass on an idyllic family farm is one that conjures wholesome images of a time that has sadly passed. Gone are the days in which the kindly farmer goes out and picks a few eggs out of a cozy nest for the family breakfast as day breaks over the farm.
This in-depth segment from John Oliver’s HBO show “Last Week Tonight” delves into just how much things have changed as he examines modern chicken farming, a business that has gone from producing 80 million chickens annually to 160 million. To produce this doubling in output, there have been massive changes to the entire business. To be fair, day still breaks over the farm, the chickens just don’t ever see it.
This is all thanks to contract farming, a process in which large companies (the video discusses Tyson specifically, though they aren’t the only ones who do this) contract with small farmers who are responsible for growing the chicks into the chickens that will then be picked up by the company and processed into meat.
Explaining the process like “chicken daycare,” Oliver quips, “Companies bring baby chicks to an independent farm, drop them off and then pick them up a little over a month later when they’re fully grown. I’m assuming that’s how daycare works.”
Known now simply as “growers” instead of chicken farmers, these people are required to meet the regulations that the corporation sets forth for the growing of their chickens, which often includes chicken houses with no access to sunlight or the outdoors in any way, massive overcrowding and poor ventilation.
The result is a lifetime of cruelty for the chickens and incredible inequities faced by the growers who are subject to penalties for speaking out about the conditions and crushing debt that makes leaving the contract impossible.
Oliver’s exposé is seriously great, you have to check it out. Whether he’s casting some rather humorous aspersions on Congressman Steve Womack’s reasons for supporting large chicken corporations or showing the names and pictures of committee members who’ll be voting on an upcoming provision to protect growers over “jangly guitar music,” it’s pretty clear that Oliver sees a system in need of change.
We won’t tell you what he likened the representatives to if they vote against the amendment. Just watch it. Without the kids.
Vegan. Problem solved.
The best form of protest IS to stop eating chickens. No demand, the corporations lose their power, the farmers can do something more sustainable, everybody wins, even the chickens.