Black chicken farmers say poultry processors discriminated against them, drove them out of business - Entrepreneur Generations

A large poultry processor used new regulatory freedoms granted by the Trump administration to fleece black contract chicken farmers in Mississippi, Isaac Arnsdorf reports for ProPublica and The Clarion-Ledger in Jackson, Mississippi.

Koch Foods, the nation's fifth-largest poultry processor, persuaded a black farmer named John Ingrum to raise chicks for a few weeks until they were ready to slaughter. A company representative promised the company would deliver flocks and feed, and told Ingrum he could make a lot of money, Arnsdorf reports.

Black farmers are especially vulnerable because their farms tend to be smaller and they tend to make lower sales numbers than average, partly because of historic laws that excluded them from owning land and accumulating wealth, and accusations that the U.S. Department of Agriculture discriminated against them by denying or slowing loans for land (the USDA settled that class-action lawsuit for more than $1 billion), Arnsdorf reports.

"Along with these historical disadvantages, black farmers say they have also encountered bias in dealing with some of the corporate giants that control their livelihood. In complaints filed with the USDA between 2010 and 2015, Ingrum and another black farmer in Mississippi said Koch Foods discriminated against them and used its market control to drive them out of business," Arnsdorf reports.

from The Rural Blog https://ift.tt/2X8i10A Black chicken farmers say poultry processors discriminated against them, drove them out of business - Entrepreneur Generations

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