SALISBURY - Federal regulators came to the heart of Maryland's poultry district to hear what chicken growers and processors had to say. They got an earful.
During a town hall meeting Tuesday night with about 100 chicken growers and representatives of poultry processing companies, members of the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Grain Inspection, Packers and Stockyards Administration were told to "Pack up, go home and leave us alone."
The regulators were accused of not understanding the poultry industry.
Despite the hostilities, Bradley H. Powers, assistant secretary of the Maryland Department of Agriculture, labeled the two-hour session at Parkside High School "a good first step in improving communication between the industry and the regulators."
He said the meeting was more gentle than he expected it to be.
Such forums, he said, "usually bring out the people with a beef or a gripe. Those without complaints stay home."
GIPSA, as the federal agency that oversees the chicken industry's relationship with contract farmers is known, has been criticized for moving slowly, for not addressing the primary concerns of chicken growers and for being soft on the big chicken processing companies.
Several farmers at the session complained that the USDA has done nothing about a common industry practice in which the big processing companies refuse to supply growers with chickens until they make expensive improvements to their chicken houses or install new equipment.
Robert Conaway, who grows 250,000 chickens at a farm near Parsonsburg, expressed concern that GIPSA would end the competitive contracts that some farmers have with chicken processing companies.
Under this arrangement, he explained, he might get higher prices for his chickens than would another grower if his chickens weigh more.
"They have the ability to rule out these contracts," Conaway said of the regulators. "That would drive a stake into the heart of the industry. It would kill it."
JoAnn Waterfield, deputy administrator of GIPSA, said the agency had no plan to eliminate competitive contracts in favor of noncompetitive contracts in which all farmers would be paid the same for their birds.
"We are not trying to interfere with contract arrangements between growers and the chicken [processors]," she said after the meeting. "If that gentleman wants a competitive contract, he can have it."
During the session, the third of a dozen scheduled for poultry producing regions of the country, the federal officials told of new rules in the works to help growers in their dealings with the processing companies.
John Stencel, assistant to GIPSA administrator James Baker, said the new rules would require contracts between growers and processors to be written in plain language.
They would also eliminate clauses in some contracts that prohibit growers from having their lawyers or accountants review agreements before signing them.
Stencel said both moves are designed to help growers negotiate better contracts with poultry processors.
To speed the regulatory process, Waterfield said, the agency is seeking congressional authority to handle poultry disputes, as is done with those involving other livestock, through an administrative law process. Poultry disputes involving legal action go through the Justice Department.
In the USDA's invitation to farmers, Baker called the town hall meeting "an excellent opportunity for us to learn more about the challenges facing today's growers, and for growers and the industry at large to better understand GIPSA's programs."
Powers suggested that the regulators could accomplish more through meetings with small groups of growers and processor representatives.
He volunteered to help set up such sessions. Leah Akbar, a spokeswoman for GIPSA, said the agency was receptive to the idea and will schedule the meetings.
Poultry is the largest sector of production agriculture in Maryland. Growers produced 294.4 million broiler chickens last year, worth $529.9 million.
