What is contract farming?

Contract poultry farming is the way chickens are processed from egg to dinner plate. As of today, about 50 companies (most notably Tyson, Gold Kist, and Perdue) have control of the chicken market, compared to nearly 200 several decades ago. What the chicken companies do is contract out certain aspects of the production of the chicken. Contracted work can be raising eggs until they hatch or raising chicks until they are ready to be slaughtered. The latter example is what the Hancocks did.

In the case of raising chicks until they are ready to be killed, a company is in charge of supplying a poultry grower with day-old chicks, feed, medicine, and advice for their raising. A farmer must build chicken houses, put in time and effort to feed, water, and maintain the temperature of the houses, and pull out dead chickens on a daily basis.

This system, to an outsider, is quite fair and reasonable. The company is merely hiring out an aspect of production because it does not have the capability to build and raise the chickens necessary to turn a profit. The companies own about one half of the capital investment in the poultry market today, while the chicken growers own the other half (or are working to finish paying for it).

In return for their work, the companies pay groups of farmers in a "tournament" or scale system, where the growers compete during a growing cycle where the top fuel and feed per pound of chicken ratio earns the most. According to the companies, this keeps the farmers competitive amongst each other to raise quality, healthy, and numerous chickens.