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Poultry contracts are focus of Nebraska meetings

A series of poultry contract informational meetings is taking place in eastern Nebraska this week. The meetings are in response to Costco’s plan to build a chicken processing plant in the Fremont area.

Nebraska Farmers Union is one of the sponsors. President John Hansen they’re trying to make farmers aware of past problems with poultry contracts used by other companies.

“The poultry industry has some very serious and substantial baggage relative to these take-it-or-leave-it, one-sided contacts that have not served individual producers very well,” Hansen says. “Because of that, people are rightly skeptical and have questions.”

Representatives of Costco say their Nebraska contracts will be different, with guaranteed base pay and performance incentives and no penalties for below-average production. Hansen says he hopes that is the case.

“We’re in the, as President Ronald Reagan said, ‘trust, but verify’ part of the process–where everything we’re hearing is good, but we still want to see contracts and we want to see the particulars so we can make our own judgment about whether or not these contracts are in fact doing what it is that the Costco representatives are saying they want to do,” Hansen says.

Informational meetings have taken place in West Point and Columbus. They continue Wednesday night in Wahoo and Thursday night in Arlington.

AUDIO: John Hansen