WEBVTT 1 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:10.740 Abit, of course, poultry has been your profession, and you are a walking encyclopedia on poultry. 2 00:00:10.740 --> 00:00:17.980 Let's go back, I guess, maybe to the late 30s and talk about the birth of the poultry 3 00:00:17.980 --> 00:00:22.700 industry in, I guess, Georgia, and Jesse Jewell. 4 00:00:22.700 --> 00:00:28.900 Okay, and that's a good question and something I enjoy talking about. 5 00:00:28.900 --> 00:00:36.620 For many years, and even on through the 30s, chicken meat was really a byproduct of egg 6 00:00:36.620 --> 00:00:41.940 production, and it was not a commercial industry. 7 00:00:41.940 --> 00:00:50.100 In many cases, it was, you know, the woman on the farm was raising chickens for extra 8 00:00:50.100 --> 00:00:55.700 money, pen money, some of them called it, and they were smaller operations. 9 00:00:55.700 --> 00:01:06.180 But then World War II, with the need for more feed, more food, came along, and some 10 00:01:06.180 --> 00:01:12.940 of this hilly country in northeast Georgia, as you know, is not good for crops, but the 11 00:01:12.940 --> 00:01:20.780 climate is great, and there were a lot of innovative people, Jesse Jewell, as you mentioned, 12 00:01:20.780 --> 00:01:30.860 being one of the key ones, but the commercial broiler industry developed rapidly at that 13 00:01:30.860 --> 00:01:38.060 point, and chickens were shipped by train to New York and other places, from Gainesville 14 00:01:38.060 --> 00:01:47.540 and other places in Georgia, but it began to grow, and Jesse conceived the idea of growing 15 00:01:47.540 --> 00:01:51.100 chickens under contract. 16 00:01:51.100 --> 00:01:59.700 His family had a small hatchery and feed store, and so early on, I'm told, he gave chickens, 17 00:01:59.700 --> 00:02:05.820 baby chicks, to farmers who would raise them, and then they sold the feed to them, and he 18 00:02:05.820 --> 00:02:12.540 came up with the idea of the contract system so that the company would provide the baby 19 00:02:12.540 --> 00:02:14.940 chicks and the feed. 20 00:02:14.940 --> 00:02:20.780 The family farm would provide the house and the equipment and the labor, and the company 21 00:02:20.780 --> 00:02:27.940 would provide some technical assistance, and that helped the industry grow rapidly, and 22 00:02:27.940 --> 00:02:33.820 it allowed the companies to have some quality control over their product. 23 00:02:33.820 --> 00:02:38.540 So it has grown dramatically over the years. 24 00:02:38.540 --> 00:02:48.020 The growing time has been reduced from 16 weeks or so down to 7 or 8 weeks, so a larger 25 00:02:48.020 --> 00:02:56.100 chicken is grown, a 3 1⁄2-pound bird in 6 weeks or so, and larger birds are grown 26 00:02:56.100 --> 00:02:57.860 now. 27 00:02:57.860 --> 00:02:59.900 Not as much feed is used per pound. 28 00:02:59.900 --> 00:03:06.340 It's dropped from over 4 pounds required to raise a pound of chicken to less than 2 pounds 29 00:03:06.340 --> 00:03:11.380 now, mortality reduced. 30 00:03:11.380 --> 00:03:19.180 So it has become a major industry, the largest segment of agriculture and of agribusiness 31 00:03:19.180 --> 00:03:20.180 in Georgia. 32 00:03:20.180 --> 00:03:22.420 Thirteen billion a year. 33 00:03:22.420 --> 00:03:27.740 Thirteen billion a year, and that money spreads through the economy. 34 00:03:28.620 --> 00:03:36.420 It provides not only those farm opportunities I mentioned with 4,000 or so farms in Georgia 35 00:03:36.420 --> 00:03:41.780 with those opportunities, and many of them have cattle in South Georgia and other places, 36 00:03:41.780 --> 00:03:51.140 crops as well, but it's been a stable for the farms, and it provides 100,000 or so jobs 37 00:03:51.300 --> 00:04:00.580 in Georgia, and we are now, Bob, producing every day, every single day, about 26 million 38 00:04:00.580 --> 00:04:13.260 pounds of chicken and about 12 million eggs, and that product is sent to many other states 39 00:04:13.260 --> 00:04:16.980 but is exported to other countries as well. 40 00:04:16.980 --> 00:04:23.860 Now somewhere between 15 to 20 percent of all the chickens produced in Georgia are exported 41 00:04:23.860 --> 00:04:25.580 to other countries. 42 00:04:25.580 --> 00:04:32.020 So I like to tell people that while some companies are moving offshore, while some people are 43 00:04:32.020 --> 00:04:40.700 moving jobs offshore, the poultry industry is exporting product and creating jobs and 44 00:04:40.700 --> 00:04:43.780 importing money into the United States. 45 00:04:43.780 --> 00:04:49.900 So it's made a contribution to the balance of payments for the United States because 46 00:04:49.900 --> 00:04:54.180 it has become such an important export product. 47 00:04:54.180 --> 00:05:00.220 Even the feet of the chicken paws are sold to China and Hong Kong. 48 00:05:00.000 --> 00:05:06.000 Many years ago, it was a throwaway item. 49 00:05:06.000 --> 00:05:11.200 Now they have become a valuable product as well.