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The company owns the tools. The company owns the plans. The company owns the product. The company owns the profits.
The farmer owns — well, he doesn’t quite own the land until he pays off his mortgage. The company owns and controls the entire operation, so it’s no wonder Sonny’s family found themselves drowning in debt. Back to my earlier question: just how did Sonny get into this whole mess?
On the phone, Sonny explained: he came home to lend a hand to a failing family business. He figured it would take a year at most to get them back on track, at which point he’d return to school to finish his master’s. If he could increase production within that year, he could pay off their debt faster and go back to school sooner. One year became two, two became three, and on and on until it became clear that Sonny wasn’t going back anytime soon. Sonny became a cog in a machine he couldn’t control.
 
 
The cost-benefit analysis of poultry farming has shifted dramatically since this 1937 ad.
I asked what happened after his farm was burgled and the article published. He moaned, and mumbled something about the FSA and DHEC — the South Carolina Department of Health and Environmental Control. I couldn’t make out exactly what he was getting at, but I could tell from his voice the news wasn’t good. Something about getting fined and having to pay even more money on top of the loss. Something about having to dispose of all those dead chickens.
I asked whether Pilgrim’s had compensated him for the loss of his flock, and he said no, they hadn’t. That week, with no birds to deliver, he placed dead last in the bi-weekly tournament. Pilgrim’s counted the murdered birds against him and docked his pay, even though they likely had been reimbursed by their insurance policy and could very well have passed this reimbursement along to Sonny.
But seeing as how the damage was done by an outside force — rather than the company itself — the company had no obligations to compensate an independent contractor who’d agreed to do business with the company, on the company’s terms, at his own risk.
I said, Sonny, there must be a clause in your contract that entitles you to some kind of remuneration in the event of a disaster? They can’t hold you liable for this! How can you be expected to suffer these losses when it isn’t your fault? What does it say in your contract?
And to this, Sonny replied, exasperated:
— I don’t have a contract!
— What do you mean you don’t have a contract? Didn’t you sign one?
— They won’t give me a copy. I keep asking and they never give it.
— But, Sonny, they have to give you a copy. It’s illegal to withhold it.
— I don’t have a copy. They won’t give me one.
 
 
I asked why he didn’t demand a copy of the contract, and he said that every time he pointed out inconsistencies in company policy or procedure, he was mysteriously visited and fined by the company itself, or the FSA or DHEC for violating some new regulation about which he’d previously never been bothered.
Sonny would later reveal that the DHEC had suspiciously fined him $20,000 for the necessary and inevitable act of disposing of the dead birds. Whereas the other farmers who’d been attacked were allowed to incinerate their victims, or bury them outside, Sonny was required to bury his inside his empty warehouses. DHEC claimed this was because Sonny’s farm was surrounded by environmentally-sensitive wetlands — though Sonny points out that the previous owner of his land was able to excavate and bury all he liked and was never questioned or fined.
Moreover, he had to wait for the corpses to decompose completely before Pilgrim’s would deliver more flocks, putting a hold on his income stream. These stringent and costly regulations were applied and enforced upon Sonny and Sonny alone, adding to his paranoia and reluctance to insist on the contract, or as he saw it, “cause trouble.”
But even before I traveled to Manning, where Sonny would confide these details and more, I could already tell he was in way over his head, with nobody to turn to, except maybe me.
Sonny seemed doomed to live a life of modern-day slavery. It would take something on the scale of a deus ex machina to intervene.
When the conversation came to an end, we exchanged vows: I told him I would help in any way I could, and he swore to God he would never, ever let his children go into the chicken business.
 
 
Still from the documentary film FOOD, INC. comparing today’s genetically modified chickens with the more modest breeds of yesteryear.
Assoon as I got off the phone, I rang Chris with the update. Chris was relieved to hear Sonny was alive, but disappointed to discover he’d been denied a copy of his contract. I was shocked. Chris wasn’t. Read the book, he said. Chapter 1 is all about the chicken business. It’s all there.
 
 
Americans consume more chicken than anyone else in the world — more than 90 pounds per capita in 2015.
I read the book. Chris was right. Sonny wasn’t the first chicken grower to experience this unjust corporate backlash. He probably wouldn’t be the last. But what could be done? Pushing Sonny to whistleblow without a thorough understanding of the consequences seemed unethical and exploitative. It would put him and his family even more at risk of racking up fines, and possibly even losing their contract and main source of income. (His extended family also works in several nail salons throughout the region, to supplement their earnings).
You might suppose Pilgrim’s would think twice about cutting off an otherwise rule-abiding, well-performing grower, but the truth is, he needs them more than they need him. Were they to cancel his contract, the only party to suffer in this circumstance is Sonny. The company would barely feel a hit. Were Sonny forced to declare bankruptcy, his farm would be seized, assets liquidated, and debt repaid by the FSA.
That’s right: if a farmer defaults on his bank loans, the FSA steps in and bails out — not the farmer — but the bank. And that’s because Sonny’s loans are guaranteed by the FSA. It’s actually a win for the bank if he loses his contract. Critical thinkers out there might suspect the bank actually wants him to default on that $2M loan.
 
 
William “Bill” Lovette, president and CEO of Pilgrim’s Pride. Lovette was formerly the chairman of the National Chicken Council, which lobbies congress on behalf of the industry.
I racked my brain for what to do. I thought to introduce him to Carole Morison, a former contract chicken grower and whistleblower in Maryland. You may be familiar with Carole from her appearance in the Oscar-nominated documentary film Food, Inc., as the only farmer who allowed the filmmakers to bring their cameras into her operation, and who shortly afterward was fired by Perdue. Carole was able to successfully emancipate herself from the sharecropping system and start over as an independent, pasture-raised egg farmer with the help of a successful crowdfunding campaign on Barnraiser, the farmer’s Kickstarter.
I thought she could offer Sonny an alternative perspective, as well as camaraderie and practical advice. I contacted her and explained the situation, and asked if she’d be willing to chat with Sonny, which of course she was. Carole was very gracious and sympathetic and offered to help in any way she could. I was excited to share the news with Sonny. Carole’s bravery and resilience made her an icon of sustainable agriculture, and I was sure putting them in touch would empower Sonny to speak up.
On July 3rd, I texted Sonny. He responded:
Ok. I will contact u about this after this holiday. Thank you.
A week went by. Then another. I took the initiative to ring him myself, and followed up with several texts and voicemails. I could tell he was reading and ignoring them; he has read receipts activated on his text messages. With each passing week, my boss was growing more and more concerned I was losing the story. On August 4th, she sent me down to South Carolina to scout it out, see whether or not I had scared him away for good, or could find a way to get him to talk on camera.
 
 
On the way to Sonny’s, I see a huge logging operation on the property across the road. They’re clearing the neighboring forest — dozens of tall timbers, flatbed trucks carving deep tracks in the soft mud. I turn into the opposite driveway and crawl up the gravel path toward the house, passing a large, manmade pond. The small ranch house, with its gray brick façade, looks under construction. An old minivan is parked outside the garage. A young woman rifles inside through the open door. I park my rental car and approach. I know it’s his wife.
I ask to speak to Sonny. She says he’s not there. I ask again, holding up my cell phone. “I tried calling him. He won’t pick up!” Again she says no. “Can you call him for me on your phone? Tell him it’s the filmmaker from New York. He knows who I am.” She finally gives in and dials her cell, informing Sonny in Vietnamese. “He’s at the chicken house, he’s coming now.”
Sonny drives up to meet me from the opposite end of his property, his car trailing dust and rocks and the smell of chicken manure. He wears a camo print jumpsuit, brown beanie, and a huge smile. He looks about 35. We shake hands and sit on upside-down buckets outside the garage. We talk for an hour. He uses a rock to draw in the dirt, outlining the schematics of his farm before and after the attacks.
I ask how he ended up with two farms — one behind the house, and another a ways away down the road. Turns out, a few years ago, another Pilgrim’s chicken grower knocked on their door in the middle of the night, also Vietnamese, forlorn and very behind on his bank payments. He wept uncontrollably as he begged his neighbors to put them out of their misery and buy their farm at an extreme discount. Sonny took pity and agreed, expanding his operation by nine more houses.
 
 
Sonny (left) pictured beside neighbor and mentor Tuan Nguyen (no relation) in a 2011 news story about Asian immigrant chicken farmers. Source: USA Today. Photo: Brett Flashnick.
After a while, a young black man approaches; I introduce myself, offering my hand, but he smiles and refuses, looking to Sonny for further instruction. Sonny gives directives, then turns to me and says, “That’s my farmhand. Good man. Hardworking.” I ask how many people are helping him care for his 240,000 chickens? The answer is: one. Sonny can’t afford to hire another farmhand, so he does it all himself. “But my brother is coming from Vietnam in September!” He adds, “But I won’t tell the company. I don’t want them to know anything about me. I don’t want any more trouble.”
I ask again about putting him in touch with Carole Morison, and he shakes his head no. He doesn’t want to reform, he just wants out. He never wanted to go into chicken farming in the first place.
I’d initially thought he could sell the farm to a cooperative of conscious, young farmers who have the energy to flip the operation on its head. Start over as a diversified farm; maybe run a crowdsource campaign to dig Sonny out of debt. But Carole already explained to me why that could never happen in a place like Manning: the only USDA-approved slaughterhouses for poultry south of the Mason-Dixon line are owned by the big meat companies. And corporate abattoirs only service corporate birds. This is why Carole had shifted from raising slaughter hens to producing pasture-raised eggs.
There’s no way to get pastured birds to market without going through a USDA-approved slaughterhouse. There’s no way to transform an industrial poultry growing operation back to a sustainable, independent chicken farm. So — scratch that one off the list.
 
 
Sonny grows “broiler” chickens that end up in processing plants like this one. These plants operate around the clock to process 9 billion broilers a year. Source: Oxfam America.
Meanwhile, back at the ranch, Sonny confesses his despair and repeats his pledge to protect his children and grandchildren from following his footsteps. I press him about the missing contract, and he murmurs, “it’s not right, it’s not right.” I agree, and ask if he’d be willing to talk on camera about all this, and he answers, “wait until I get a copy of my contract.”
I ask if he’s tried asking other Pilgrim’s growers to help and he says he’s given up on that; his neighbors are already reluctant to talk to each other, much less company management. I ask if he’s tried asking a lawyer, and he says he can’t afford a lawyer. I’m going in circles, trying to find a solution.
He thanks me for my efforts and invites me inside the house, where his wife and two small children are waiting. I ask to use the bathroom, and he shows me the way. When I return to the kitchen, Sonny is generously stuffing a plastic bag with Vietnamese candies; he smiles and insists I take some snacks for the road. This friendly gesture is almost more than I can handle. Before I go, I ask if he would rather I stop calling and leave him alone, and he says no.
 
 
After I got home to New York, and it was clear I wasn’t getting Sonny on camera any time soon, my boss made me shift gears and focus on developing another story for our show. But I couldn’t just forget about him and move on. I had to do something. Even if that something had nothing to do with my assignment or job.
I meet with my friend Ann Marie Rubin, an environmental attorney with Agrarian Trust, a project dedicated to supporting land access to next generation farmers. I give her the scoop and she forwards to me to the Project Coordinator at Rural Advancement Foundation International (also known as RAFI). I call and they immediately put Benny Bunting on the line.
 
 
Benny Bunting, RAFI’s lead farmer advocate. Source: Orion Magazine. Credit: Rob Amberg.
Benny Bunting is a former chicken grower and RAFI’s lead farm advocate. Benny is a self-taught authority on federal, state, and local farm policies who mentors struggling farmers through times of economic crisis and social injustice. He also represents farmers in the National Appeals Division of the USDA (also known as NAD), a system whereby farmers can rep other farmers in their claims against the USDA. Verdicts made through NAD are reviewable and enforceable by United States district courts.
I tell Benny about DHEC singling Sonny out for costly fines relating to the attacks, and he says it sounds like he might also be the victim of racial discrimination, on top of everything else. He says he often works with Southeast Asian farmers who buy properties that are overvalued by the bank; properties that are already underwater, and maybe the bank’s already burned through the white farmer, so now they go after the immigrant farmer, who’s relatively less experienced, and maybe a bit naive about the true value of the property. It wouldn’t surprise him if the same had happened to Sonny.
 
 
Typical industrial chicken houses which can cost up to $500K apiece to finance. Source: Heritage Land Bank.
Benny has a million questions for me, and I barely have any answers for him. He wants to know the name of Sonny’s bank; the exact number of chickens he’s raising; the last time he’d seen a copy of the contract. All sorts of details I had failed to extract on my visit. He says he’s willing and able to help, but Sonny has to be the one to pick up the phone and call. In order for RAFI to advocate on his behalf, he has to fill out a release form authorizing access to his FSA and bank records.
I call Sonny to relay the news — but he doesn’t pick up.
I send voicemails and text messages. I see he is reading my texts, but not responding. I recruit friends to translate my messages into Vietnamese, thinking maybe that would help gain his trust and communication. Still nothing. Weeks go by and I diligently continue texting him, he continues to read and reply with silence.
The last time I heard from Sonny:
Early on last summer, when I’d just begun researching the Southern American foodscape — and before I’d learned about Food Inc.’s Carole Morison — I read about a small, organic family farm in Manning, the only one as far as I could tell. They’d installed a solar system and established a CSA. I gave them a call, wondering whether they also raised chickens. At that time, I’d wanted to put Sonny in touch with a local independent poultry farmer (I didn’t yet know this simply did not exist). Turns out they didn’t raise hens, only vegetables, and very few at that. But I’d had a nice conversation with the farmer, an older woman named May Jones, who ran the entire four acre operation by herself.
In September, a month after my trip to Manning, I called May and explained the situation. I asked if she was willing to visit Sonny in person to relay the message about RAFI. She agreed, and drove out to his farm to talk, face-to-face. May reported back that she met with him for over an hour, and they discussed the benefits of contacting RAFI. Sonny was more concerned with the risks.
 
 
The United States has a long tradition of intimidating and disempowering immigrants. Source: NYPL Digital Collections.
She said he seemed very concerned that, were he to call RAFI for help, Pilgrim’s would discover their involvement and retaliate. He was worried they were monitoring his calls. She offered to let him call from her phone, right then and there, but he refused. She said he seemed very depressed and dispirited, as if he had already given up and couldn’t be convinced otherwise. She said it broke her heart to hear his resignation and defeat. It broke mine too.
How’s his health? I asked.
Not too good. She said. Sonny seemed very stressed, was paying out of pocket to see his doctor because he still can’t afford health insurance. He really ought to just quit, but he’s got three mouths to feed on top of his own.
My last question, before getting off the phone: May, do you think he wants me to just leave him alone already? Stop bothering him?
No. She said. He wanted me to tell you he appreciates your effort, and does not want to be left alone.
 
 
The future of food does not have to look like this. Source: Atlanta Journal-Constitution. Credit: Bob Andres.
This story was originally presented as a live talk at the Just Food? Forum on Land Use, Rights, and Ecology at Harvard Law School on March 26, 2016. Special Thanks: Christopher Leonard, Chris Green, Cynthia Hanson, Michael Lyons, Dylan Pasture, Ann Marie Rubin, Jean Willoughby, May Jones, and Yusef Audeh