by Ken Midkiff
 |
It once was that hogs were the fall back for cash poor times. If the mortgage on the farm was due, a farmer would sell a few hogs, make the loan payment, and have some money left.
That’s no longer the case. The number of Missouri family farmers raising their own hogs to sell can be counted on one hand, and the number of hogs produced in this state has decreased commensurately. In fact, there were several million more hogs raised in 1975 than there are today in 2005.
What happened was that the hog market was taken over by a few large companies — Cargill, ConAgra, ContiGroup, Smithfield (aka Murphy’s) among others. These companies own the hogs, provide feeds laced with antibiotics and other additives, tell those responsible for the daily ministration what to do, and even dictate when the hogs will be picked up and slaughtered. The contract growers are NOT farmers — they’re caretakers of someone else’s animals. Or as an Iowa farmer put it “hog janitors.”
These agribusinesses won’t buy hogs from independent producers. As an Illinois farmer phrased it, “They own and control it all, from semen to cellophane.” The goals of BigPig are uniformity and efficiency. The slaughterhouse and packing plant lines move quicker when all animals are the same weight and configuration. Every cut of meat looks like every other cut of meat. Feed-to-weight ratios are as low as possible.
But, as Lynn McKinley, a farmer from Putnam County in far north Missouri says “I won’t contract with Premium Standard Farms, Inc. — owned by ContiGroup. I’ve seen their way. It isn’t my way.”
Lynn recently sold all her hogs and concentrates on other aspects of the farm. Farmers don’t make very good janitors.