Chickens: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver (HBO)

chickens basically turkeys with eating disorders we love eating chicken in this country so much so that we have to produce a lot of it in the last 25 years the chicken industry has doubled its production and headcount from 80 million chickens a week to now about 160 million chickens a week a hundred and sixty million chicks a week those are Warren Beatty numbers but those are those are Rob Lowe at the st. Elmo's fire première partie numbers you know what those are clean-shaven Leonardo DiCaprio on a yacht anchored outside the Cannes Film Festival numbers that's a lot of chicks that's an unmanageable amount of chicks we eat so much chicken it has become our reference point for what every other meat tastes like pretty good I'm telling you man it doesn't taste like lizard it tastes like made by chicken raccoon is a delicacy in China I hear it tastes like chicken you had those with alligator meat tastes like mmm chicken what does that taste like um I really hate to say this it really tastes like chicken all Medill Oh take some hot chicken think about that that's amazing there is no parallel for the other senses if I said to you everything looks like tables or everything feels like Koosh balls you think I was insane now obviously all of this has been great news for the poultry industry which is dominated by four gigantic companies pilgrims Tyson Purdue and Sanderson farms and I know what you're thinking you're thinking all this is just gonna be another story about how horribly chickens are treated and I know we do hear about that a lot chickens and turkeys are arguably the most abused animals on the face of the planet you probably have no idea what goes into making a bucket of KFC chicken sadly the main ingredient is cruelty okay Pam look let's be fair there the main ingredient in KFC chicken is not cruelty its chicken the only thing we're cruelty is the main ingredient is child stars it goes cruelty glitter child and then statistically chicken and yes chickens no doubt can be treated terribly but that is not what this story is about this is about chicken farmers and unfortunately this is going to be a lot less pleasant than what you are looking at right there poultry companies would have you believe chicken farmers have it made smiling in their promotional videos always no matter the company over the top of jangly guitar music it's a good feeling to to have a flock of birds that are beautiful healthy you know you've done a good job the best product that you could produce has just left your farm if someone called me up tomorrow and said would you be a poultry farmer all over again I would say yes sometimes I don't understand him as well as I do the chickens yeah of course you don't your husband is an adult human with a vibrant interior life or washing infinite complexities and that is just a chicken so yes it's easier to understand but despite those beautifully produced testimonials it turns out many farmers have a very different experience of it fan of heart attacks since I've been in the chicken business the struggle has been very real and there's been lots of nights that we haven't slept it's kind of tough now kind of tough it is tough and it has been tough for a long time multiple studies have shown that many growers who sole source of income was chicken farming live below or near the poverty line which sounds insane how can the people who make the meat we eat the most barely be making a living we eat chicken when it's been popcorned when it's been fingered and when it's in Disney's mouth shaped nuggets which incidentally is a little legally suspicious listen there might be Mouse in these but we technically told you so you cannot sue this this is all thanks to a system called contract farming contract farming is basically chicken daycare companies bring baby chicks to an independent farm drop them off and pick them up little more than a month later when they're fully grown I'm assuming that's how daycare works 97% of chickens are raised this way and when the chicken companies describe it again over jangly guitars they make the system sound great for farmers Tyson Foods actually owns the feed and the feed bins and we actually own the chickens in the house however the properties the equipment the labor everything around the business on the farm is actually owned by the farmer you've gotta hand it to them jangly guitars simply make anything sound more plausible here I'll show you give me some music Mickey Mouse nuggets take the finest chicken no Mouse and cover it with breadcrumbs no mouse I'm not it's are the epitome of Mouse less chicken one Mouse see what but but think about what that guy actually just said you own the property and the equipment we own the chickens that essentially means you own everything that costs money and we own everything that makes money because typically farmers go into a great deal of debt just to build chicken houses and go into the business and the moment you sign that contract the chicken companies have a lot of leverage over you so all those horrible conditions that chickens are kept in farmers might not care for those either bound by contract Craig is not even allowed to give them sunshine or fresh air if you get that natural sunlight and the birds will act if they don't want that they want him sitting down getting up taking the drink a bite to eat and sitting back down he gets fattening oh I absolutely would do away we saw the walls I would give them back sunlight letting sunshine and fresh air in is number one two birds will love it and number two better for me yeah but of course chicken companies won't let you do that they know that chickens are like reality stars the happier they are the less money they're worth there is there is a reason that II cancelled keeping up with alan and arlene older partners and best friends for 15 years and it it's not because Allen was too good a listener and and the problem is as fast as farmers trying to pay down their debts companies can pile more on by demanding that they make expensive upgrades the company's on a regular basis come around so all you have to do this upgrade or that upgrade and if you don't you know go get chickens anymore we gotta have this you got to have that you got to have that you know it started out first it was nipple drinkers and then it went to tunnel houses and then it went to blackout curtains on the south side and all this more stuff ended up costing more than our original buildings and that must be frustrating farming chickens is like hooking up with James Franco not James first you wanted us to try nipple drinkers which was weird but I put up with it then it was the tunnel house which was even worse and now you want us to try blackout curtains no James no I'm out we're done James we're done so if you think about it at this point a farmer may have borrowed over a million dollars for houses and improvements but they do this because they're led to believe that they'll have a steady source of income except they're actually paid according to a tournament or Gladiator system and unfortunately again it is significantly less adorable than what you are looking at right here because watch one business journalist explain it the company takes you know could be as many as 100 farmers in an area and then it ranks them against one another those in the top half will get a bonus payment extra money those in the bottom half will get a deduction they'll get financially punished and what that means is that you are competing against your neighbors if they produce fatter chickens with less feed your pay gets cut and not by a nickel you can be paid nearly half as much as other growers per pound for reasons not entirely within your control it's like an agricultural Glengarry Glen Ross or hen Gary hen Ross if you ABC a always BBC clucking do it and look I do not apologize for that joke I stand by it I stand by that no no no - you had your chance here Jimmy get on board and look losing a tournament and being labeled a bad grower cannot just cost farmers their home it can cost them a lot more this past Monday morning in North Carolina one of these bad growers went out drove down a country road he was terminated from his contract about to lose his home took a gun and ended his life that's what we're talking about here today this is personal it's gets real for poultry growers at this point you might be angry at the chicken industry but careful you need to leave a little room cuz you're about to get even angrier a chicken industry spokesman was actually asked about why so many farmers live below the poverty line and this was his response which poverty line are you referring to is that a national poverty line is that a state poverty line poverty line in Mississippi and Alabama is different than it is in New York City what the are you talking about it doesn't matter the poverty line is like the age of consent if you find yourself passing exactly where it is you've probably already done something very very wrong and the thing is chicken farmers can't even complain because one of the reasons that you've not heard about this story is that to hear farmers tell it companies take a hard line with complainers every time that I've spoke out against the poacher companies and the wrongdoings they retaliate by cutting my pay cutting my chickens back cutting the quality of my chickens that I get they're ranked one through ten number one is the best chicken they got number 10 suppor chicken coming off sometimes based on your mouth you'll get a lot of eight nine and ten tickets holy when controlling threaten their dependents with numerically inferior chicks that's not a responsible business model that is entourage that's what that is if you're ding my band's bra I'll have every girl in LA avoid you like it's a king carbohydrates car wait for the movie I cannot wait for the movie it's gonna be sick it's good the boys are back the boys are back the boys are back and remember if you're given inferior chicks you are going to suffer in the tournament and potentially lose your farm now the chicken companies claim that they don't do that although I will note that in researching this story we've spoken to a lot of farmers who believe it to be real and are terrified of it happening to them a few years ago the Obama administration tried to address many of these problems with new regulations they held town hall meetings and there was something of a common theme let me say that numerous growers are not attending these workshops because of being afraid of retaliation on them by their integrator in the last 48 hours we've had growers have been threatened not to attend this meeting and not to speak out I represent or help represent 650 chicken growers in the state Alabama and I'll be out of all the 650 of them there's two that was not afraid to come up here I'm not saying I'm brain I'm saying I'm not I'm a proud American I'm a veteran and I need the right to be able to talk to y'all today but that's it's an impressive man now if you works for the chicken industry you would have to be an idiot to stand up in that room and try to defend your behavior ladies and gentlemen I present to you and idiots five years ago knowing what you know or at least I think you must have known why would you get into a business that you feel least from your comments that's not a very good business wait why did you let us you over is not a defense against King people over it just isn't there was a farmer in that very room who was happy to explain things to him my comment is directed towards the gentleman that said she wondered why Valerie Ruddell got into the business I can tell you the reason why she got into it is the company lied when you put numbers down on a piece of paper to get the bankers to loan you the money and then it don't follow through how do you make bank payments we've heard a lot of information here today and I really didn't want to get up here and speak but we really need these rules and we need them quick we need rules and we need them quick you know this guy is serious because he's talking like someone who just caught his roommate masturbating in the living room house meeting house meeting I know it's just the two of us but Gregg this needs to stop House meeting now strike for Gregg strike four on you Brett the good news is protective rules for poultry farmers did actually get written the bad news is they are not currently being enforced because every year since the rules were written a rider has been inserted into the agricultural appropriations bill that explicitly forbids the USDA from enforcing them and and in recent years this effort has been championed by representative Steve Womack so why does he do this who knows maybe it's because his home district is the site of Tyson's world headquarters or the fact that he's received tens of thousands of dollars in campaign contributions from chicken companies or maybe he is just sexually attracted to chickens and is jealous that farmers get to spend so much time with them I don't know I'm speculating here the point is he has thought efforts to protect farmers just last year representative Marcy Kaptur attempted to pass an amendment simply giving farmers protection to speak out without retaliation that was it and she made a convincing case the Department of Agriculture wants to enforce these regulations so that farmers have standing and that they don't have their livelihoods taken away from them simply because they're allowed to speak about their conditions what is wrong with that what is wrong with that and what is wrong with that is that the companies in this situation have too much power those doing the work in these houses don't have enough power we need to give them equal standing in the courts and in their ability to come and see us and exercise their rights of free speech please support this amendment that is that is the kind of speech that normally has soaring music behind it and proceeds a come-from-behind victory at the end of a movie but in real life this is what happened immediately afterwards please support this amendment question is on the Kaptur amendment all in favor say aye aye all opposed will say no the noes seem to have it that is the most depressing ending since the Sex and the City movie Oh big carry big you better than that Carrie if anything you should have ended up with Aidan yes yes yes I do not boring Carrie but guess what so are you so are you Carrie and look look I know this story has been depressing and you might be wondering what you can do I mean you could stop eating chicken but you're not going to do that because chicken is delicious I'm getting hungry just thinking about it now here hmm delicious it tastes like armadillo you could say you could say well I'll vote against Congressman Steve Womack but you won't because you don't live there and also for the last two elections he has had no major opponent the only small satisfaction I can give you is letting Sean Connery voice your feelings about Womack why am I not surprised you piece of it's a little bit a momentary visceral satisfaction but it doesn't really change anything but the truth is there is actually a glimmer of hope that same committee is set to meet again next month the marcy kaptur might again try to pass a provision protecting farmers from retaliation and if she does then let me use the chicken companies weapon against them I'm talking of course about jangly guitar music to convince you that everything I'm about to say is true because listen to this there are 51 voting members on the committee these are their names and their States if your representatives name is up there and they vote against Marcy captain's amendment it is because they and I cannot stress this enough our chicken they chickens that's what they do every day every which way and unless they want that chicken girl able to follow them for the rest of their lives they won't want to think extra carefully about which way they are going to vote because chicken accusations do not come off a Wikipedia page easily or if they do they tend to come right back up because chicken companies may be able to retaliate against farmers for speaking out but they cannot prevent us as one from screaming chicken at the top of our lungs if any of these people votes against the farmers in this tiny tiny amendment all potential chicken because here don't be one of them that's all we're saying that's our show we are off next week but we'll be back the week after that good night you

Channel: LastWeekTonight

Views: 12,761,609

Keywords: hbo, chickens, chicken farmers, Last Week Tonight With John Oliver (TV Program)

Id: X9wHzt6gBgI

Length: 18min 22sec (1102 seconds)

Published: Sun May 17 2015

Reddit Comments

[u/leinadeht]

I like that this episode has some clear cut naming and shaming of the people at fault, hopefully that will make a difference in the upcoming decision.

[u/beatlesfanatic64]

I'm going to be honest, I went into this thinking John Oliver was running out of stuff to talk about. Wow was I wrong, this was one of his best segments yet. It just shines a light on an issue I had absolutely no clue about. I knew a little bit about the private prisons, the transportation systems, etc. but this entire industry I had never really given any thought.

[u/BakedBrownPotatos]

My fiance's father is a chicken farmer for one of the four companies mentioned, and though the pay is about as it's described in the video, he's fortunately able to supplement it with additional farming of other stock.

The real costs in my eye (with no farming experience) are the health effects and time commitment. He's generally healthy, to my knowledge...no coughs or chronic disease. But I've spent a couple days in the chicken houses and fumes alone are unbearable. It's not so much an awful smell that you can't stand, but more of a nagging quality in the air that makes you just not want to breath it. The closed-in containment of the chickens only serves to amplify this.

The biggest cost, and this is just based off of family opinion, is the time commitment. The man easily works 12 hour days, everyday, and when we visit on the weekends, he usually has to spend several hours in the mornings and evenings checking equipment and ensuring that the chickens are kept in reasonable condition. With the summer heat arriving, it is becoming a more intensive job. As his family grows and ages, it puts more pressure on him to take time away to visit grandchildren and travel out of state to see other relatives. It's pretty unfortunate, though, that he has to struggle so much if he wants to take off long enough to visit his children a couple hours away.

Briefly about the pay...it's not great, and the rising minimum wages at many of the larger department/grocery stores are beginning to approach his rate. From my understanding, he's paid by the pound, but it's impossible to predict how much each cycle of chickens will net him. If he raises a house of chickens and they're grown and ready to be shipped as scheduled on Tuesday, but the company decides to push it to Wednesday, roughly 200-500 chickens may die (average figure based on my understanding). Not only does this cut his income, but it wastes his overhead, as he's effectively spent a good chunk of change on food for chickens that die the day before they can be harvested.

We hope that he'll soon switch industries.

[u/Seregnar2]

Here's a nice Wikipedia link of all the people listed at the end.

[u/[deleted]]

That Entourage joke was really shoehorned in there.

[u/[deleted]]

Almost every single feature story on Last Week Tonight leads back to the same terrifying and seemingly unstoppable source of damage: Large US Corporations.

[u/jobbon]

Who here thought it was going to be about the unethical treatment of chickens? Instead we got a glimpse at the underlying problem, the way farmers need to squeeze every financial drop out of their bussiness leaves little room for proper animal treatment, outside of enforced rules. Meanwhile the large companies who controll the majority market share seem to be running away with the profits.

It's strange that a bussiness like farming needs massive investments, while it has, in cases like this, minimal profit margins.

My dad always had a joke about this:

What is the fastest way to become a millionaire?

.

.

.

.

Be a Billionaire and then become a farmer.

[u/adhding_nerd]

I'm probably naive, but can they not just raise their own chickens? Can someone please explain it to me, I'm sure there's a good reason.

[u/peachypal]

"You are letting us do this to you. You knew the risk but you let it happen anyway. You brought it on yourself. It's your damn fault!!" The logic is usually used by rapists.