By Lena Beck for Modern Farmer.
Broadcast version by Shanteya Hudson for North Carolina News Service reporting for the Modern Farmer-Public News Service Collaboration.

When Paula and Dale Boles took over Dale's father's farmland in North Carolina, they thought that poultry farming would be a good way to work the land until they were ready to pass it on to their children. They obtained a contract with Case Farms, eventually switching over to Tyson, and built two poultry barns to company specifications, going $300,000 in debt to do so. It seemed like a good situation, though-as long as they could make their annual mortgage payment of $40,000, they'd be able to pay it off within 10 years.

But soon, other expenses started getting tacked on. Tyson required a new computer system to control the temperature in the barns. This was another $70,000. Their propane bill averaged around $25,000 per year. Not making the updates wasn't really an option-no matter how much time and money you invested to be a farmer for the company, they could cut your contract at any time.

And the income wasn't quite what they expected. Companies like Tyson pay their farmers in what's called a tournament system. There's a base pay, but whoever raises the best flock and has the best "feed conversion"-the biggest birds for the least feed- makes the most money, and payment decreases the further you go down the ladder. This essentially pits all the regional farmers against each other.

Challenging company representatives, even on small things, resulted in retribution. Paula Boles says sometimes they'd intentionally bring you a "bad flock," keeping your yields low and locking you into the bottom rung of the tournament system.

"If you complain too much, they just start sending you bad flocks of chickens," she says.

The Boles' situation with Tyson was far from unique. While contract farming, or "factory farming," has been exposed in the media for being exploitative of animals, the farmers who sign contracts with companies like Tyson, Perdue or other big players in animal agriculture also find themselves backed into a financial corner. But, over the last several years, there has been a wave of efforts to find ways to support farmers transitioning out of factory farming. The Boles, who raised their last flock for Tyson about nine years ago, are proof that getting out is possible.

"Now to have come through it, it's been a long process," says Boles. "It hasn't been easy, but we've lived to tell about it, so to speak."

Creating pathways

Tyler Whitley is the director of transfarmation for The Transfarmation Project, an initiative of Mercy for Animals. He has helped work with 12 farms to get them out of the industrial system-a system, he says, that is designed to exploit them.

"The way that the current structure of factory farming is designed is that...the steps that carry with it the most risk and the most debt and the most liability are transitioned to the farmers," he says. "And so what you have is you have farmers building these extremely expensive facilities at the very specific direction [and] design of the company that they're working for. But they don't own the animals."

The Transfarmation Project was founded by Leah Garcés. Whitley says that Garcés realized that ending factory farming would necessitate support systems for the farmers.

"She thought that if we're going to be able to end factory farming, it's not just about creating a different system that runs parallel, like you might see a lot of organizations doing when they talk about agroecology or regenerative farming [and] things of that nature," says Whitley. "But you have to actually create transition paths for farmers to exit out of factory farming."

And these pathways can be difficult to find and establish. Debt is one of the biggest hurdles to transitioning out of contract farming, says Whitley. And it's not simply that the farmers have debt but a specific type of debt that requires lender authorization before farmers can make a change.

Two of the other big challenges relate to the question: If not contract farming, then what? If you're choosing to grow a different crop, a big obstacle is the learning curve-all forms of farming require specialized knowledge that makes changing lanes difficult. The other hurdle is marketing. When you have a contract, you don't need to market your product, because you only have one buyer. This is also part of what makes factory farming inherently risky for the farmer.

"They don't market the animals directly, so they have one customer," says Whitley. "If you're a business that has only one customer, you have a very high amount of risk for your business if you should lose that customer."

Before The Transfarmation Project can help farmers find specific buyers for new crops, it needs to have a pretty good idea of what would feasibly bring in an income for the farmer. For this, it turns to Highland Economics for market analyses. Highland Economics has composed reports on a handful of specialty crops of The Transfarmation Project's choosing, such as hemp, edible flowers, strawberries and microgreens.

The assessments are twofold-it looks at the regional market drivers for a crop, including what types of investments are being made in the sector and important trends-and it also considers what the projected costs and returns of growing that crop are in an indoor setting. Looking at the data that emerges in these analyses, such as consumer demand and the debt service coverage ratio (the ability of a producer to pay their debts with the income they earn) helps farmers decide if a certain crop is right for them.

Travis Greenwalt of Highland Economics also encourages producers to do their own research. "I think this is a great preliminary or a starting point for starting that conversation," says Greenwalt. "But the specific costs and specific returns are going to be all dependent on the location and the producer."

'Steady treadmill of debt'

Garcés started The Transfarmation Project after meeting Craig Watts, a then-poultry farmer for Perdue who let her come to his farm and film inside his chicken barns. This view into what factory farming was really like made national headlines. Watts found himself as a whistleblower after feeling deeply disturbed by the disconnect between how this scale of poultry farming was portrayed versus the reality of the situation. But when he was starting out, his goal was to get back to farming on his family's land, and contracting with Perdue seemed like the way to do it.

"It just sounded like a good deal," says Watts. "You build the houses, they supply the birds, they supply all the technical advice. It's a steady cash income. Supposedly, you could have positive cash flow the first year in business, which was unheard of."

But Perdue exercised control over how Watts farmed. It could move the goalposts as it desired, requesting upgrades to his equipment for which he had to pay.

"They're always coming back to you when you get your houses close to being paid for to make these additions or renovations," says Watts. "There's always this new thing, 'it's gonna save the industry and you have to have it, but we're not going to make you get it but we're not gonna bring you any more birds until you do it.' It's kind of making it mandatory without actually saying 'mandatory.'"

Instead of making good money, Watts found himself on a "steady treadmill of debt."

Additionally, the way that the birds were being treated was misrepresented to the public, which eventually tipped Watts over the edge.

"I guess everybody has their breaking point," says Watts. "And I had mine sitting in a motel room in Brookings, South Dakota."

A commercial had come on the television for the company. As Watts watched the commercial, he saw Jim Perdue driving down the road and then stepping into a chicken barn. Inside the barn were big, beautiful, clean birds, walking around on floors covered in pine shavings.

The reality that Watts had witnessed day in and day out for 20 years was quite different: chickens packed into small spaces, often injured or physically unable to stand or walk, panting due to overheating and sitting on a cake of fecal matter.

"I had a contract with Perdue Farms, but at the end of the day, the customer was my boss," says Watts. "And I just felt like they needed to know."

And that was how he ended up letting Garcés inside his barns to film. The resulting video made national news in 2014.

Now, Watts works with the Socially Responsible Agriculture Project (SRAP), heading up its Contract Grower Transition Program. At the same time, he is learning how to effectively grow mushrooms on his farm in the old poultry barns. Growing mushrooms requires a very different set of skills, and as he learns best practices, he helps other farmers find a place to land.

Most people who come to SRAP are in crisis mitigation mode; they just had their contracts cut, many are strapped with debt and they're trying to figure out how to proceed without losing their land and their livelihoods. Every farm is different, so there is not one uniform approach. But SRAP provides guidance through the financial and legal obstacles.

"We are an air traffic controller, so to speak," he says. "We are looking for that pilot to help them land as soft as possible."

It's not without loss, Watts cautions. Changing the way you farm or remaining in farming after a contract is cut isn't always possible. "People still lose their farms," says Watts. "There's no magic wand here. We flip rocks until we can't flip anymore."

For Watts, the bigger changes have to be systemic.

"We hear about how the food system is broken," says Watts. "The consolidation has given farmers less options to sell to and less options to buy from. But the reality is, the food system is working as it was designed to work. It's working perfectly. What has got to happen is there has to be a major shift in policy."

Ripple effect

The video Garcés made with Watts made waves in the media, but it also resonated deeply with other farmers who were in the same position and had felt completely isolated. In December 2014, the video made its way to Paula and Dale Boles.

That day, the Boles came home from a difficult day at their barns with a bad flock.

"We went back to the house and watched that, and just sat there in tears," says Paula Boles. "Because we knew when we saw that, that we weren't the dumb hillbillies like Tyson had told us that we were. We knew that there was somebody else out there. And everything that [Watts] said in that video was the life that we were living."

They looked at their calendar and decided that May 2015 would be their last flock. Boles wrote a letter to Tyson requesting to terminate their contract, and four weeks later, they received notice that their cancellation had been accepted.

"Even driving to the post office to pick it up, I was a nervous wreck," says Boles.

Farms contracting with Tyson have a sign on their property that says "Tyson" and the name of the farm. About a week after their cancellation was confirmed, someone from Tyson drove out to the farm and picked up their sign.

"We were just standing there, we thought, wow-we invested $400,000, we almost lost everything that we have, and all they had invested in us was a $20 sign."


Lena Beck wrote this article for Modern Farmer.


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Consumers are unhappy with increasing food prices and blame inflation. In reality, natural disasters have a direct link to grocery costs, with no end in sight.

Climate change affects Illinois farms, especially drought. The weather extremes lower their livestock's productivity, raising the price of dairy and meat products.

Michael Stromberg, spokesperson for Trace One, a food and beverage regulatory compliance company, said the effects of floods, hurricanes, drought and extreme heat have a nationwide and global impact.

"The price of oranges and the price of orange juice have both steadily increased in recent years due to declining production in Florida caused by large hurricanes," Stromberg outlined. "Grain prices are through the roof in critical agriculture regions like the Midwest. It starts with drought. It affects a huge portion of agriculture in that region that has an aftereffect at the grocery store in terms of your grocery prices."

Illinois ranked 10th in the Trace One study of all 50 states where natural disasters have the biggest impact on the nation's food supply. Losses were mostly due to drought in Henry, Sangamon, Lee, Logan, Bureau and Mason counties.

Stromberg argued innovation is needed to solve these dilemmas. One solution is to develop and
distribute climate-resilient crops capable of withstanding extreme droughts and floods. Other strategies are to implement effective water resource management systems and invest in flood control measures alongside restoring natural buffers. Wetlands and watersheds will act as sponges to help mitigate the dangers of excessive rainfall. He added more answers can take on a scientific tone.

"Farmers can use newer precision agriculture technologies like IOT sensors, drones, advanced analytics that can allow farmers to better monitor weather patterns, things like soil health and their water usage, which can optimize resources better," Stromberg explained.

He urged the public to vote for policies prioritizing renewable energy, water conservation and sustainable agriculture to drive "incremental improvement," and for the public to reduce their food waste. Another Trace One study found Illinoisans lost slightly more than $1,900 per household, or $766 per person from food waste last year.


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By Seth Millstein for Sentient.
Broadcast version by Freda Ross for Texas News Service reporting for the Sentient-Public News Service Collaboration

Another day, another E. coli outbreak. In the last half of 2024 alone, E. coli has been found in ground beef, carrots, onions, walnuts and cheese, causing at least 186 illnesses, one death and several recalls. Why is E. coli popping up left and right — and what do these outbreaks have to do with factory farms?

The answers to these questions, respectively, are “we don’t know” and “a lot.” Harmful E. coli is produced primarily in the guts of ruminant animals, such as cows, sheep, goats and deer, and as a result, it’s often found in beef. It can easily infect other foods as well — but even when it does, beef production and cattle farms are often still the ultimate source of the contamination.

This can play out in several ways, but it’s important to note at the outset that there’s still a lot we don’t know about E. coli transmission. Often, researchers can’t identify with certainty the original source of contamination, and can only speculate on the path it took to reach whatever food it ultimately infected. The bacteria itself also changes and adapts over time, complicating these post-outbreak analyses even further.

“With many of the outbreaks, [investigators] cannot find the source of the infection,” Alfredo Torres, professor of microbiology and immunology at the University of Texas Medical Branch, tells Sentient. “There are all sorts of contaminations that we have no idea where they’re coming from.”

What Is E. Coli?

E. coli, or Escherichia coli, comes in many different varieties. The majority of them are harmless, and some serve important purposes in the human body, but there are six subvarieties of E. coli bacteria — often referred to as “The Big Six” — that can cause illness in humans.

In the United States, most E. coli outbreaks are caused by the strain O157:H7. This strain belongs to a group of E. coli subtypes called Shiga-toxin producing E. coli, or STEC. As the name implies, the STEC varieties of E. coli produce a toxin called Shiga, and when we talk of humans becoming sick with E. coli, it’s usually the Shiga toxin that’s responsible for causing the actual illness.

While there’s a lot that scientists still don’t understand about STEC, it’s believed that the bacteria’s initial development must take place in the intestinal tract of certain non-human animals, namely cows and other ruminants. From there, it can spread to humans in a number of ways, but to the best of scientists’ current understanding, it can’t develop in the first place without a ruminant’s gut.

Humans contract harmful E. coli strains by eating contaminated food and or water, interacting with infected animals or people, or coming into contact with feces with E. coli in it. It can be highly contagious; in 1993, a sixteen month-old boy died from E. coli after coming into contact with the stool of a classmate who had the disease.

Although this was an example of human-to-human transmission of the bacteria, it still began with a cow: The classmate’s mother worked at Jack In The Box, the source of the outbreak.

E. coli can produce a variety of symptoms. When it infects the large intestine, it can result in diarrhea, vomiting, nausea, stomach cramps and loss of appetite; when the bacteria is in the urinary tract, it causes pain during urination, cloudy urine and abdominal or pelvic pain.

Although most people who become sick from E. coli recover within a week or so, some patients develop serious and life-threatening conditions, such as haemolytic uraemic syndrome (HUS) and sepsis. Studies on the mortality rate of E. coli infections have come to a wide range of conclusions, from eight percent on the low end to 35 percent on the high end.

Where Does E. Coli Come From?

E. coli lives in many places, but the “Big Six” subtypes that sicken humans are all found primarily in the bodies of cattle, Torres tells Sentient.

“The bacteria can actually grow in the rectal anal junction of these animals without causing any disease, or any symptoms, or anything,” Torres says. “So when [the cows defecate], the fecal matter is contaminated with this organism, and anything that gets in contact with the manure, or water contaminated with the fecal matter, can get contaminated with the bacteria.”

Historically, E. coli outbreaks in the United States came from tainted beef, Torres says. The O157:H7 strain was first discovered in 1982, when 47 people contracted it after eating contaminated burgers from McDonald’s. The 1992 E. coli outbreak, which killed four people and sickened over 500, also originated from beef patties, this time from Jack In The Box.

The Jack In The Box outbreak received significant media attention and became something of a national scandal. In response, the USDA subsequently implemented a number of regulations to prevent beef from being contaminated with E. coli, and fast food restaurants implemented operational changes, such as separating beef patties with tongs instead of bare hands, in an attempt to accomplish the same.

These changes did reduce the frequency of beef-originated E. coli outbreaks, Torres says, but they didn’t put an end to the outbreaks entirely. The harmful strains of E. coli may originate in a cow’s gut, but they can survive in other environments as well. And thanks to this resilience, E. coli has the ability to infect plenty of foods other than meat.

How Factory Farms Cause E. Coli Outbreaks

Given E. coli’s affinity for cow intestines, it’s no surprise that cattle farms and slaughterhouses are often the source of E. coli outbreaks. Typically, this happens when E. coli in the cow’s gut cross-contaminates the rest of his or her body during the slaughtering process, and ends up in the resulting beef.

But because E. coli is found in manure as well as the body, anything that comes into contact with manure is also liable to be infected. This includes water — and unfortunately, it’s not uncommon for manure from cattle farms to make its way into nearby waterways. (The disease can also spread via human waste in waterways, but only if the human in question had already contracted E. coli).

There’s good reason to believe that this leakage, or runoff, contributes to the spread of E. coli. A 2023 study found that water samples taken from sources within a mile of factory farms had higher concentrations of E. coli than those located more than five miles away from said farms.

This year, an FDA study found that waterways contained a higher prevalence of STEC stains of E. coli in particular when they passed by factory farms. This occurred even when there was no apparent runoff from the farms to the water, leading researchers to speculate that the bacteria latched on to dust from the farms and traveled to the water via the air.

Complicating matters further is the fact that E. coli can also live in the leaves of certain vegetables. This was evident in 2006, when tainted spinach caused a massive nationwide E. coli outbreak that killed three people, sickened over 200, and depressed spinach sales for over a year.

The Spinach Outbreak: a Case Study in Uncertainty

The spinach incident is a good illustration of how E. coli outbreaks occur — and of why even vegetable-based outbreaks can often be traced back to meat production.

“That was the first time we learned that somehow, the bacteria is able to survive in leaves of spinach,” Torres tells Sentient. “If you use a microscope and you look inside of a leaf, there’s an area called the stroma, and you can actually find the bacteria attached to that area.”

The fact that E. coli can survive within the biological structure of spinach itself, as opposed to simply living in water on the surface of spinach, means that washing contaminated spinach isn’t sufficient to rid it of the bacteria.

Subsequent investigations of the 2006 outbreak found that the contaminated spinach originated from a single grower in California, and investigators were even able to trace it back to a specific ranch in San Benito County. That ranch was located next to a cattle farm, and manure and river water from the cattle farm was later found to have the same strain of E. coli that contaminated the spinach.

But incredibly, despite all of these findings, investigators weren’t able to determine precisely how the spinach became infected in the first place. They speculated that tainted river water could have made its way into the well that irrigated the spinach fields, or alternatively, that a wayward cow or pig might have inadvertently transferred the bacteria from the cattle farm to the spinach.

Nevertheless, a spokesperson for the California Department of Health said at the time that “we’ll never be able to make a definitive link” between the cattle farm and the spinach ranch.

The whole episode encapsulates an unfortunate truth about E. coli outbreaks: we often don’t get a full picture of how exactly they unfolded. We know that the disease originates in the stomachs of cows and a few other species, but the path it takes to infect humans is often impossible to fully understand.

Take the recent McDonald’s outbreak. Contaminated onions are believed to be the culprit here — but how did they get contaminated in the first place?

The short answer is that we don’t know. In an interview with Sentient earlier in the year, public health expert Sarah Sorscher said that the onions were “probably being processed in an environment with ground beef or some other high-risk food” that already had E. coli. Torres, meanwhile, suggests that they may have been contaminated via tainted water.

But these are merely guesses — educated guesses, to be sure, but guesses nonetheless. As of this writing, the precise manner in which the onions and carrots became contaminated with E. coli is unknown, and it’s entirely possible that it will never be known. Such is the nature of E. coli outbreaks.

But one thing is for sure: eventually, it always comes back to poop. And factory farms present the perfect opportunity for this poop to make its way into drinking water. Manure from these farms is typically stored in enormous outdoor lagoons, which can — and do — easily leak into nearby waterways.

How Can We Prevent E. Coli Outbreaks?

The federal government has taken a number of steps to lessen the risk of E. coli outbreaks. The Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) of the USDA tests random samples of raw beef for E. coli before they’re sent to restaurants or retailers, and conducts regular inspections of produce farms.

But the government can’t test every piece of spinach or beef before it’s sent out into the world. The ambiguous and confusing nature of E. coli spread means that ultimately, it’s on individual farms to implement and follow best practices that can help stem the prevalence of outbreaks.

Some of these practices are mandated by the government, while others have been developed and voluntarily adopted by producers. Since 1996, the FDA has required meat and poultry producers to implement an inspection system called HACCP, or Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Points, to catch potential contaminations before sending their product to distributors.

But these kinds of rules are only effective if agricultural producers abide by them, and sometimes they don’t. The processor of the tainted spinach behind the 2006 outbreak, for instance, hadn’t been following its own water-inspection policies in the month that the tainted spinach was processed, a subsequent investigation found.

The FDA can warn, fine and even shutter facilities that ignore food safety practices. But much of the time, this only happens after there’s been an outbreak. In 2017, the FDA shut down Dixie Dew Products after discovering numerous food safety violations at its production facility — but only after the company’s soy nut butter gave E. coli to 29 people, nine of whom developed kidney failure as a result.

The Bottom Line

E. coli is something of a moving target. The ways in which it infects food still aren’t fully understood, and the government has at times been slow in implementing policies to reduce the frequency of outbreaks (the FDA only rolled out comprehensive safety rules for produce in 2016, for example). The fact that the bacteria keeps popping up in new foods creates yet another challenge.

One thing is clear, however: Industrial animal agriculture, and cattle farms in particular, are central to the spread of E. coli. While operational and regulatory steps can be taken to reduce the risk, E. coli’s prevalence on cattle farms is an unavoidable and intrinsic consequence of how the cow’s digestive system works. As long as we’re farming cattle for food, we’re going to be dealing with E. coli.


Seth Millstein wrote this article for Sentient.


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Consumers are unhappy with increasing food prices and blame inflation. In reality, natural disasters have a direct link to grocery costs, and no end is in sight.

Indiana farms are affected by climate change including hot, dry summers and excessive rain.

The weather extremes lower the productivity of their livestock which raises the price of dairy and meat products.

Trace One is a software and regulatory compliance company for the food and beverage industry.

Spokesperson Mike Stromberg said the effects of floods, hurricanes, drought, and extreme heat have a nationwide and global impact.

"The price of oranges and the price of orange juice have both steadily increased in recent years, due to declining production in Florida caused by large hurricanes," said Stromberg. "Grain prices are through the roof in critical agriculture regions like the Midwest. It starts with drought. It affects a huge portion of agriculture in that region, that has an after effect at the grocery store - in terms of your grocery prices."

Indiana ranked 24th in the Trace One study of all 52 states where natural disasters have the biggest impact on the nation's food supply.

Losses were mostly due to riverine flooding, or excessive water flow - in Clay, Dubois, Knox, Morgan, and Vigo counties.

Stromberg said innovation is needed to solve these dilemmas. One solution is to develop and distribute climate-resilient crops that can withstand extreme droughts and floods.

Other strategies are to implement effective water resource management systems and invest in flood-control measures alongside restoring natural buffers.

Wetlands and watersheds will act as sponges to help mitigate the dangers of excessive rainfall. More answers, he added, can take on a scientific tone.

"Also, farmers can use newer precision agriculture technologies," said Stromberg, "like IOT sensors, drones, advanced analytics that can allow farmers to better monitor weather patterns - things like soil health and their water usage, which can optimize resources better."

He advocated for the public to vote for policies that prioritize renewable energy, water conservation and sustainable agriculture to drive "incremental improvement" and for the public to reduce their food waste.

The study found that Hoosiers lost slightly more than $2,000 per household, or $826 per person, from food waste last year.




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