Poultry growers share issues

A delegation from South Korea met with local growers in Gentry Thursday

A delegation from South Korea recently visited with Gentry area poultry growers to learn how contracts and relationships between growers and integrators are handled in the United States. Pictured are Chanjin Chung, professor at Oklahoma State University; Hongjae Lee, poultry grower from S. Korea; Sejin Oh, poultry grower from S. Korea; Jung-Joo Kim, professor from KonKuk University in S. Korea; Bev Saunders and Al Saunders, local poultry producers; Karen Hunton and Jerry Hunton, local poultry producers; and Josh Payne, of the Oklahoma State University Cooperative Extention Service.
A delegation from South Korea recently visited with Gentry area poultry growers to learn how contracts and relationships between growers and integrators are handled in the United States. Pictured are Chanjin Chung, professor at Oklahoma State University; Hongjae Lee, poultry grower from S. Korea; Sejin Oh, poultry grower from S. Korea; Jung-Joo Kim, professor from KonKuk University in S. Korea; Bev Saunders and Al Saunders, local poultry producers; Karen Hunton and Jerry Hunton, local poultry producers; and Josh Payne, of the Oklahoma State University Cooperative Extention Service.

— A visit from Korean poultry producers to Gentry on Thursday revealed that producers in South Korea face many of the same difficulties as poultry producers in Arkansas and Oklahoma.

Attending the meeting at the Gentry Chamber of Commerce office were: Chanjin Chung, professor at Oklahoma State University; Hongjae Lee, poultry grower from S. Korea; Sejin Oh, poultry grower from S. Korea; Jung-Joo Kim, professor from KonKuk University in S. Korea; Bev Saunders and Al Saunders, local poultry producers; Karen Hunton and Jerry Hunton, local poultry producers; and Josh Payne, of the Oklahoma State University Cooperative Extension Service.

Discussions, translated by Chung, revealed that poultry producers in both the U.S. and S. Korea have little control over their poultry operations. Large poultry companies provide the birds, feed and limited medications and pay the producers based on the weight of the birds at the end of the growing period. Producers have no control over the genetics or health of birds provided, feed quality or vaccines and medications.

Producers are responsible for the utility costs to keep their poultry houses at prescribed temperatures (usually more than 90 degrees), and rising utility costs are eating up profits for growers - though Korean companies pay more for birds raised in cold winter months, helping to offset utility costs for fuel oil used to heat poultry houses there, according to Oh.

Growers from both countries estimated their operations earned only 3 to 6 percent after expenses - a small profit, considering the investment of money and labor to grow the birds for large poultry companies.

“We run a million dollar operation and make less than 5 percent; that’s not very profitable,” said Al Saunders, explaining that a new poultry house with equipment, notcounting the land, costs about $475,000.

“You could take that same amount of money and invest it in the stock market and make a higher percent return and not get dirty,” Jerry Hunton added.

Saunders said the poultry business used to be good until the last few years, when utility costs began to climb.

High fuel costs have been a problem in Korea too, where fuel oil is used rather than propane because it is less expensive. Last winter was one of the coldest, Kim said, and this winter is even colder.

Many farmers currently in the poultry business used to be dairy farmers, Hunton said. But when the local dairy industry failed, farmers entered the poultry business so they could stay on their farms. Many depend on other forms of income to subsidize their poultry operations.

With no control over the quality of birds shipped to their farms or the quality offeed, growers in both countries are at the mercy of the poultry companies. One bad batch of birds or an error in the feed mixture provided can cause an even bigger cut in profits, the growers from both countries agreed.

Hunton expressed his desire for a closer working relationship with the integrators and the growers.

It would nice if the integrators would work with us if they make a mistake, Hunton said.

As it is, poultry growers often bear financial losses for errors which are not theirs.

Without additional allowances for utilities, many poultry growers could be forced out of business and into bankruptcy.

While land prices are much higher in Korea, the cost of feeders and poultry equipment is less. Poultry houses, too, are generally smaller there.

All Korean growers belong to a national growers association and have a check-off system,according to Oh. The cost to producers is approximately .03 cents per bird, said Chung.

Poultry producers’ associations have generally failed in the U.S. because producers don’t want to contribute toward the costs of forming and managing such associations, Saunders said. He said most growers would not even pay $25 per poultry house per year.

Bird sizes in Korea are generally smaller - a 3.3 pound bird in 34 days rather than 5.5 to 6.15 pound bird in 49 days.

In Korea, chicken litter is used as fertilizer in vegetable farms, Oh said. It is immediately tilled in, he said. He mentioned cabbage and peppers as crops fertilized with poultry litter.

No solutions to poultry producers’ problems were reached at the Thursday meeting, but both Korean producers and their U.S. counterparts were hoping for improved relations and better contracts with the large poultry companies who contract their farms and services. A little more cooperation and say in their poultry-growing businesses might go a long way.

News, Pages 1 on 01/12/2011