Last spring, in the midst of the bird flu outbreak that devastated South Dakota turkey and egg factories, South Dakota’s GOP spin blog briefly stepped out from behind its Dear Leader press releases to sow fear of backyard chickens. Most responsible reporting about bird flu since then has confirmed that such fears about local, small-scale poultry husbandry are rooted in that blog’s long-standing pro-corporate, anti-self-sufficiency political prejudice, not in an actual analysis of real risk.
The Mitchell Daily Republic‘s report on egg-producers’ recovery from the spring epidemic confirms that small-scale chicken growers don’t pose the same risk as big bird factories:
But not every farm was afflicted by disease. According to [Canistota chicken farmer Tom] Neuberger, the avian flu never found its way onto smaller, free-range farms.
“One of the state poultry association guys was here to check our operation out, and they didn’t find a small operation like ours that got the disease,” Neuberger said.
Neuberger said he and his wife have raised chickens for about 40 years and also raise geese, turkeys, ducks, beef, pork, lamb and chickens grown for meat [Jake Shama, “Egg Producers Yet to Recover from Avian Flu,” Mitchell Daily Republic, 2015.10.28].
Any chicken—whether factory fowl or family friend—can get bird flu. But the fact is that in South Dakota in 2015, the corporate flocks got it and the backyard flocks didn’t.
The corporate flocks get another disease that backyard flocks never do: corporate welfare. The South Dakota Governor’s Office of Economic Development has helped Dakota Layers in Moody County secure a federal Small Business Administration 504 loan to help build a new pullet facility that will house 200,000 chicks. Bird flu forced Dakota Layers to kill its entire 1.3-million-hen flock last May. Dakota Layers won’t say the loan’s exact dollar amount, but it will cover 35% of the pullet project cost. If I’m reading the federal rules correctly, each $65,000 loaned via 504 must “reflect an average of one job opportunity.”
Dakota Layers VP Jason Ramsdell tells WNAX Radio that Dakota Layers feels raising one’s own birds is “key to ensure that you have birds and to ensure that you’re getting the best quality of bird when you come into the egg-laying cycle.”
Raise your own birds, get the best quality. Yup.
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In my continuing McMuffin Watch (breakfast—it’s what’s for dinner!), Shama notes the impact of the corporate bird flu epidemic on egg prices:
The decline in eggs has led to higher prices. Nationwide, farmers received an average of $2.38 per dozen for table eggs in August, according to USDA data. Farmers received $0.86 per dozen at the same time last year and $0.87 in 2013.
This marks the first time egg prices paid to farmers have risen above $2. Additionally, June and July marked the second- and third-highest prices paid of all time, respectively, according to USDA records dating back to 2000 [Shama, 2015.10.28].
I pay an extra two bucks to add one egg to a Sausage McMuffin at McDonald’s. The farmer gets a tenth of that money.
Fareway Food Store in Cherokee,iowa has a dozen extra-large eggs from Sparboe Farms listed at $1.58. Limit 2 dozen this week until Monday.
I’m guessing any Fowl for Thanksgiving/Christmas dinners will be decadently expensive. Haven’t seen any turkeys advertised as of yet.
Sparboe Farms used to supply eggs for Hy-Vee stores but when a video showed filthy conditions,poorly treated birds and rodents running around,Hy-Vee dropped them like a hot rock. Sparboe eggs always seem to have cracks and broken eggs in their cartons. Check them closely before you buy.
If you were kept in a crowded room with 100,000 of your closest friends you’d get the flu too.
I’m surprised no one has blamed the rise in minimum wage for the cost of the extra egg at McDonalds.
Nick is a farmer so he saw this easily. I had a farm years ago and saw the same thing. My Dad had 22 cows and then I worked on a dairy on the west coast that had 300 cows. It was easy to notice that if there was a problem on a large farm, it was a huge problem. If the plumbing broke down we would carry water to each cow on my Dad’s farm and then fix the plumbing. On Henry’s dairy, if the plumbing broke, we first fixed the plumbing and then the cows could drink. He did not even want to figure out how much milk was lost for the time the cows could not drink.
The health problems are even worse on huge farms. The ventilation does not get as much air to the animals and diseases spred like wildfire. I always thought that if the animals are spread over more locations would be more efficient because of disease spread.
Sioux Falls allows backyard chickens, up to six hens, no roosters. People in Brookings, Rapid City, and Pierre are attempting to pass chicken ordinances but are having a tough time getting something passed. Why does our largest city allow chickens and Pierre at 14,000 people does not. Does it have anything with the fact that Sioux Falls has a younger population that desires to get back to basics?
Get big, get sick. Pretty simple! Of course, that poses a problem for our biggest fast-food purveyors, who want their massive meat supply streams to carry fewer antibiotics. We can’t mass-produce Chicken McNuggets and two billion All-Beef Patties from backyard chickens and cows, can we?
The government must subsidize these operations to try to keep the consumer from seeing the actual cost of the product. Cory notes that he pays a higher price for the eggs to go with the sausage at the counter. We all pay for that as well as a whole for programs that are in the Farm Bill. If we had backyard or local suppliers for our chickens and our sausage and then ate only what was in season, we could solve this kind of giveaway. The problem is that we do not want to do that. We cannot see why a gallon of milk should cost 4 bucks a gallon to cover the expenses of milking, feed and the property it takes to do so until you try to make your own ice cream and compare that to what is in the store freezer. A dozen eggs should cost at least $2.50 to cover the same and meat should be market prices, much like seafood. We pay corporate entities billions of dollars to keep the food prices down by paying subsidies that artificially do little to help consumers and still has producers taking ag loans. We will need to rethink all of this as our world changes, how is the best way to help those that feed us stay in business and how do we work to make sure that the food supply is safe? Corporate farming is not the answer. The much smaller operations like the gent that has the small open range chickens is the answer.
Dang, you’re right, Jerry! We already paid taxes for the grain in that muffin. Do eggs get any direct subsidy, or is that what we see in the SBA 504 loan for Dakota Layers?
Paul, I was just saying to a friend this week that SD Democrats don’t have an agricultural base to build on any more, that instead they need to rebuild their image and registration numbers among the growing young urban population. But you remind me that a fair chunk of that young urban population may be more “aggie” than we realize. They want to return to old-fashioned, self-sufficient agriculture. There may not be enough backyard chicken growers to single-handedly add 25,000 voters back to SDDP voter rolls, but there are a lot of young urban people eating those locally grown chickens and tomatoes and locally baked bread who would support a less corporate, more small-scale locally focused ag policy. Think about that, Democrats!
Next year if the chicken supply is back to where it was I think we’ll have to check to see if the price goes down. It should but I bet it won’t.
This guy blamed original increase in egg prices in 2013 on bird flu outbreak in Mexico when US producers increased exports from under 500k dozen to over 12 million dozen.
http://blogs.wsj.com/economics/2013/06/14/egg-prices-take-flight/
Cory, you make a real good point about the growing local foods movement. There is a real increase in interest in local foods in the Sioux Falls-Brookings area as well as the Rapid City-Spearfish area. There are farmers markets springing up everywhere, Murdo even has one. CSA’s (Community Supported Agriculture) are becoming more popular. (CSA’s are where you buy a share of the production of a small producer). I agree that these people that are into local foods are also less likely to vote for South Dakota’s one party rule.
The low level continuous antibiotics in the feed was used the most by the poulty industry since they pack their birds together tighter than hogs or cattle. For a long time poultry confinement would not work without continuous low level antibiotics in the feed. Animals just stay healthy better if they have space. When I went to college in the seventies, students from the city were concerned about animals being packed in pens to tightly. I told them that if a city person looks at an animal confinement building they see cramped quarters and wonder if that should work out ok. If a farmer goes to the city and sees people packed way to tightly together with no open spaces, we see high crime and wonder if that will ever work out ok. Both saw each others problems and neither fixed their own problems.
I just got my new Dakota Rural Action Local Foods Directory—it’s so big! It also has lots of options for meat-eaters.
Paul, how much political awareness and activism do you see in today’s local food movement? Heck, setting up a CSA is political activism of a sort; how much more political activism can those gardeners and urban-chickeners (poultriteers? there must be some cool name for those folks) fit into their schedule when they’re already exerting themselves to grow food?
Roger E, what an interesting example of mutual self-blindness, folks seeing the same problem in others but not in themselves.
Cory, I really don’t know how politically active that local foods people will be. I am encouraged by people growing their own food and food for sale at a market. This shows a change from everyone thinking that a farmer is one who only grows thousands of acres of one crop. Hopefully this kind of mindset for change will also carry over into the political realm.
Cory, I also received my DRA Local Foods Directory recently. It’s quite interesting to thumb through and see how local foods growers are spreading across the entire state.
Then we get back to Dakota Rural Action’s primary mission: empowering individuals to organize and participate in rural civic life. I’m of the impression that fostering entrepreneurship fosters a larger class of individuals who think of themselves as the captains of their own destiny, and that such a mindset translates from the economic realm to the political realm. Growing and selling one’s own food should have a similar impact.
The term for politically active people interested in growing their own food is “hipsters” aka the new DemParty in urban areas. Scares the heck out of older, angry, white Conservatives. Here in the Denver area we love our hipsters.
Thanks Porter. Hipsters? Hmmm. South Dakota Hipsters. I think that I will start using that term.
well said jerry. big issue.
cory, this tax issue, on pipelines, on grain-interesting.
You bet, Paul. Hipsters are recognized visually by their skinny jeans, flannel shirts and beards. Often seen riding bicycles and drinking Pabst Blue Ribbon. lol
http://thebestfashionblog.com/womens-fashion/hipster-tips-for-2014-or-how-to-become-a-real-hipster
LOL, back in my day, Porter we just called them “people from Colorado.” ;-)
@Fleming …. I know, right? I don’t go North much but I’ll bet there’s plenty of hipsters in Sioux Falls and Vermillion. Maybe even Aberdeen?
Hipsters wear beads and long haircuts. Mr. H sports a nice conservative haircut.
My friend Bill is a hipster.
I have many self declared hipsters crossing our path daily. Few are active other than some with years and years of parental supplied continuing education along with the intense partying that goes with every opportunity to do so.
Active, is seldom a term that could honestly be applied to any of them. Nice group of children otherwise.
@90Schilling … We’re looking for hipster’s votes. We’re not looking to adopt them. The SDDP needs to build a core and the state needs diversity … badly.
I agree Porter. I don’t care how they dress or cut their hair. I am willing to form alliances with just about anyone to help save Mother Earth.
I am a rancher fighting the Keystone XL. Who would have thought that 5-6 years ago that ranchers would be forming alliances with such groups as the Sierra Club. We don’t have to agree on everything.
The enemy of our enemy, huh, Paul?
If the South Dakota Democrat Party tries to build its future on back-yard chicken mongers and organic lettuce you are indeed doomed. Doomed like the chicken people who will be quashed because nobody wants chickens in their neighborhood. Doomed.
Gridz … If my political party were to take advice, direction or motivation from your older, angry, white male party of negativity THEN our future would be doubtful. However those things aren’t on our agenda. Y’all are dying faster than the leaves outside while we make our tent bigger and bigger for more and more voters.
Does Dakota have Extension Offices in many towns for advice on growing stuff? Iowa State has experimental farm south of Calumet,iowa(on Hiway 59) and extension offices in several surrounding towns.
Big empty tents with no real footing or support tend to blow away in South Dakota. I’m just sayin…
Old angry men with continually negative thoughts tend to lay real still for a long time. You’re doing real harm to your body with your “negativity bias” old man. It hardly has a reason to continue the struggle you put it through every day. Just sayin’.
Jerry, consider this hypothetical:
Two “hipster” brothers decide to go into farming. Each borrows money and buys his own large farm to raise chickens. Hipster brother Jim is quite successful and his farm grows to raising 100,000 chickens a year in pretty horrible conditions. Hipster brother Ralph is also successful using the same processes as Jim. Ralph also raises 100,000 chickens a year in horrible conditions.
Hipster Jim seeks legal advice on how to protect his assets. The lawyer advises him to “incorporate” as this can protect some family assets. He follows his lawyer’s advice and becomes a “corporate farm.”
Hipster Ralph and his wife have a couple of kids who are involved in the business. Ralph is not worried about his family assets and does not incorporate.
Is Jim the bad guy because he has incorporated and now has become a corporate farm? That seems to be what the meme attacking corporate farms suggests.
Perhaps there is more to the picture than whether a farmer has created a “corporate farm.” This is not to say that “corporate farms” that engage in bad practices should not be held accountable. Rather, my point is that the nature of the business structure, whether solo farmer, partnership, or corporation, really has nothing to do with whether the owners are engaging in improper or unsavory practices.
When I was on a farm a corporate farm was one that pulled up the fences so you could plow right to the edge of the road. Bull dozed or burnt down the house and buildings and plowed the land where the house was. Hired all the workers and had no connection to the community, school or church. I’d imagine there’s a lot more land like this, these days.
BCB, consider this. Two brothers that live across the road from one another. Each has the same amount of land. Each has the same family size and yet one is more successful than the other. The sad sack goes to his brother and asks his secret. The brother tells him that he is corporate and then tells his brother that he lives by the Good Book as each day he gets up and puts his finger on a page and lives that out with much enthusiasm.
The sad sack brother listens intently and goes across the road to his humble place. Soon there is much activity on sad sacks farm. New buildings are going up, new equipment, the whole works. His brother comes over and shows his astonishment. He asks sad sack if he followed his advise, sad sack nods yes. Sad sack tells his brother that he opened the Good Book, flipped the pages and his finger stopped on Chapter 13.
Moody County a chemical toilet? What a freakin’ surprise.
Those of you on twitter know we have 16 hens and two roosters. Here’s today’s haul:
https://twitter.com/larry_kurtz/status/660976430847627264
16 hens and two roosters mean someone has to mind them or they die.
Jerry, I am not sure I get your point. Isn’t Chapter 13 available to solo farmers, partnerships, as well as corporate farmers?
Yeah
My point exactly. Every business is a corporation of some kind just in case you get sued. A corporate farm is when you ask at a farmhouse if you can walk the trees across the road for pheasants and the farmer says, “I don’t even know who owns that land anymore.”
In all seriousness bcb, to me and I think many others, incorporating your ranch or farm or making it an LLC to protect yourself is good thinking. A buy sell agreement to those involved is also good to have along with the appropriate life insurance, health insurance and general liability. That is good business. What “corporate farming” is to me as a business that does not farm but is a company that makes the choices of what is going on in some place not on the farm. It is not mom and pop or a family operation in most cases. Corporate farms are owned by insurance companies, sheikhs, nobles, governments and the like from all over the world. Yep, those folks own corporate farms right here in South Dakota. So if a hippy buys a farm and incorporates it, the dude rules while sitting on that sack of seeds. If his brother chooses not to, then under South Dakota law, his bride will take over if he kicks the milk bucket and own the farm. No?
Incorporating farms means more people are eligible to collect subsidies for that farm,if memory serves. Usually just the owner of the land gets the subsidies. I believe if a family-Dad,Mom and children incorporate they may all be eligible for payments. Don’t quote me on this.
Farm members actively engaged. I’ve not seen a Corp necessary for that to happen. They have tightened loopholes that might have allowed non participating members to play. Now an over all limit on those types of ownership.
The government is involved with all sizes of agriculture.
http://www.kdlt.com/news/local-news/federal-grants-to-help-sd-programs-for-new-farmers-ranchers/35782698
Interesting, Steve! $225K for DRA to train 50 beginning farmers and ranchers. The Noem clan averaged that much in farm subsidies each year. Where can the feds get bang for the buck? And what business do the feds have giving assistance to any wealthy corporation?
The $225,000 received by DRA is for a two year period to run the Beginning Farmer Training course. Dakota Rural Action has run this for around five years. The course teaches young and beginning farmers how to do such things as write a business plan, etc. Around 80% of the graduates are in some aspect of agriculture. Generally these are smaller farmers that don’t fit the mold that Big Ag likes to see.
And I’m glad the feds are investing that money in this useful program, Paul! It seems to be one of the few nods the feds make to small-scale agriculture. What’s the state Ag Dept’s investment in the Beginning Farmer Training Course?
Cory, to my knowledge the state has made no contribution to the Beginning Farmer Program. I have been to a few of the annual Governor’s Conferences on Agriculture. A day long meeting that tries to bring together a diverse group of agriculture interests, usually held in Pierre. Most people at the meeting are of the “get big or get out” persuasion, very few of the sustainable agriculture school of thought.
At the same time that DRA received their USDA grant BHSU received a $100,000 grant to work on local foods in the Spearfish area. The USDA is way more friendly to the small farmer than is the state of South Dakota.
Because, as that great flatland philosopher Grudz sez, “South Dakota don’t need no organic lettuce eatin’ liberals trying to build a strong Democratic Party. They’re doomed.”
Small farmers are McGovern farmers. Porter’s comment makes sense.
Paul, what a change it would be for the Governor’s Conference on Agriculture to include farmers from the sustainability side rather than the all-corporate side. Hmmm… is the Governor’s Conference on Agriculture a big enough deal that it would be worth our urban chicken farmers’ time to organize an alternative/small/urban ag conference at the same location and at the same time as a sort of protest?
Cory, I believe that there is a two day local foods conference in the Hills this weekend, in Deadwood I believe. The antithesis to the Governors conference. The Sustainable Ag Coalition also holds a conference every year, quite often in Aberdeen. While these two groups don’t have the backing of corporate ag I think that they are doing quite well.
Dakota Rural Action had a place at the table at the first Governors Ag Conference. Ever since that first year our place has been in the chairs back behind the head table. Don’t know if we spoke out of turn or what happened there.