By Grace Hussain for Sentient.
Broadcast version by Mike Moen for Minnesota News Connection reporting for the Sentient-Public News Service Collaboration

Paula Boles says her husband, Dale, didn't want to be a farmer, but when his father passed away he found himself in possession of the family farm. Growing up, he helped raise cattle, rice and tobacco. But together the couple decided to transition the farm into something new - a chicken farm - and that's when their problems began.

It's a story common to the contract chicken farming business. The Boles were told by Tyson that raising broiler chickens would allow the couple to make easy money in retirement. Instead, they found themselves spiraling into debt, struggling to stay afloat while Tyson continued to profit. "I considered ourselves indentured servants 'cause that's...the way we were treated," says Paula Boles.

Boles says she and her husband didn't just suffer financially. Raising broilers for Tyson jeopardized their mental health and strained their marriage. For the Boles, the path out of that crisis was to become one of the few early adopters to transition out of raising livestock - converting their chicken houses to greenhouses.

They aren't alone. Though the movement is still small, it is growing, thanks in part to efforts by projects like Transfarmation and Rowdy Girl Sanctuary. For the Boles, transitioning away from raising meat for corporations has helped reduce their stress and provide freedom that they hadn't enjoyed during their years of raising chickens.

In part that's because contrary to what they were told by Tyson, the business of raising chickens for the poultry conglomerate controlled their lives. Paula recalls having to get up at 3 AM to check on the birds and the sheds anytime an alarm would go off, alerting them to something amiss. The demand was so great that Dale Boles even missed their son's college graduation, as he was unable to leave the farm.

Factory Farming Linked to Stress

In 2018, the CDC identified farmers as the occupation with the highest rate of suicide. While that specific finding was retracted due to an inaccurate interpretation of the data, mental health struggles remain a challenge in the agriculture industry.

As a therapist focused on serving farmers in rural Minnesota, Ted Matthews has firsthand experience with the mental health crisis in farming. One of the major stressors Matthews points to is the increasing size of farm operations. "Not that long ago if you had 100 or 200 cows you were a big dairy," he says. But today some dairies have tens of thousands of cows. As competitors grow in size, it's becoming harder and harder to compete, driving smaller-scale farmers into predatory contracts with conglomerates like Tyson and Smithfield.

Once they've signed a contract, the farmer loses all control over how animals are raised and, as was the case for the Boles, they don't even own the livestock they're housing.

That lack of control over everything from stocking density to feed represents a major stressor for farmers, says Tyler Whitley based upon his meetings with dozens of them. Whitley spearheads Transfarmation, one of the projects focused on helping farmers transition out of livestock, like the Boles.

Trapped in a contract with Tyson, Paula watched as thousands of chicks were dumped unceremoniously into their chicken sheds, with no regard for the condition of the animals. "You can tell within 24 hours whether you're screwed or not," says Boles, as some of the flocks were from hatcheries that produced "better birds."

As the flock got older, she would walk through the sheds filled "wall to wall and door to door" with chickens. Sometimes while making the trek she'd see a bird stiffen and fall back, a sure sign of a heart attack. "It was just really inhumane," she says.

If the dead weren't removed daily, the other birds would start pecking at the carcasses. Cleaning up the expired chickens was no easy task. "Out of that many birds, you're going to have some die everyday," she says. And as they grew heavier, several trips were required to haul their dead bodies out.

She recalls feeling especially distraught when, just a few short weeks later, they would be caught, placed into cages and loaded onto the trucks. It wasn't uncommon for birds to die during loading or on the trip to the slaughterhouse. For Boles, the animal suffering was compounded by the fact that every dead bird represented money lost and more debt.

From Chicken Barns to Growing Greens

Eventually, they were able to leverage their retirement savings and Dale's construction experience to transition their chicken sheds to greenhouses for growing greens. Now ,they help guide other farmers looking to do the same.

Even though they now have greenhouses instead of chicken houses, the Boles are still dealing with the fallout of running a broiler farm. In 2020, Dale had a heart attack that the first responders didn't think he would survive. The cause: stress-induced heart damage that Paula believes was from their time running the chicken farm. His survival was thanks to "the grace of God," she says.

While the Boles are by no means alone in their concern for the welfare of their animals, Matthews points out that many farmers view it as simply "part of the job." Some situations, however, are so horrible that basically everyone is impacted.

He points to hog farmers during COVID-19. Due to slaughterhouse shutdowns, farmers "had to euthanize pigs [who] were totally healthy." The farmers' job during that time basically became killing pigs and dumping the bodies. They have "nightmares about those kinds of things," says Matthews.

In Whitley's experience, even if poor animal welfare is considered just part of being a livestock farmer, it often contributes to why the farmers he works with want to transition their farms. "They'll name living next to a barn of screaming pigs or chickens [or] picking up dead chickens" as quality of life issues associated with being a farmer, says Whitley.

Compounding the issue is a reluctance to talk about their mental health. Farmers "don't look at it like mental health," says Matthews. "They look at it like mental illness," which makes them reluctant to seek help.

For Paula Boles, their experience has led to a better future, enabling her to help others struggling in her community. She spends her days growing flowers and produce in her chicken sheds turned greenhouses. Of the converted structures she says: "the same greenhouse I used to cry over at night [allows us] to grow...microgreens and bless people."


Grace Hussain wrote this article for Sentient.


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A meeting on sustainable fishing in Seattle could inspire greater protections for Washington state's waters in Olympia. The State Innovation Exchange held the "Sustainable Aquaculture and Working Waterfronts" convention with lawmakers from 13 states.

Emma Newton, senior associate with agriculture and food systems program for the State Innovation Exchange, said big corporations dominate agriculture and farming, but large-scale, industrial fish farming isn't in the United States - yet.

"However, we are seeing increased interest in putting these large-scale, essentially factory farms of the ocean in our waters, and they're a direct threat to our ocean ecosystems, our local fishers and the native fish populations," she said.

Newton added the convention focused on how policymakers can protect sustainable and local fishing economies and tribal food sovereignty.

Rep. Mia Gregerson, D-SeaTac, attended the convention and said the state banned some fish farming practices after tens of thousands of non-native Atlantic salmon escaped a fish pen in 2017. Gregerson added the state needs to go further to protect the region from industrial fish farming.

"We're only able to control the policy for about three miles off the shore, and so it's going to be really important then, right, to make sure that we have a state coastal zone management plan that prohibits the same type of farming beyond just state waters," she said.

Newton added events like the one in Seattle are important because policymakers are able to connect with communities and the people working on these issues, making them more effective in their decision making.

"They're able to know that they don't have to go to the large corporations or the lobbyists for the information they need. They can go directly to the community. They're building relationships that circumnavigate the traditional way that policy is being made," Newton said.


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Farmers in Iowa are studying interactions between crops, water usage, carbon and nitrogen storage, and how those factors combine to affect longterm soil biodiversity. It's part of a seven-state project in the Midwest.

Researchers are looking at the effects of crop combinations on soil and moisture across the Corn Belt.

Iowa State University Agronomy Professor Sotirious Archontoulis is running one research site in the five-year, $16 million project.

He's monitoring how crop management, carbon and nitrogen content affect soil moisture - and will try to predict the impact on the viability of future crops.

"We have the same setup in many different environments to capture different organic matter, soil hydrology conditions," said Archontoulis, "so we get a better understanding of the complexities in the agronomic system."

Archontoulis said scientists can also study greenhouse gas emissions from the soil.

He said these ultimately affect its health and can have an impact on large ag operation waste runoff, which is known to pollute nearby ground and surface water. The research is gearing up now.

Based on the computer model's findings, Archontoulis said researchers can make recommendations to farmers based on - for example - how much nitrogen the soil is losing in certain places, and how they can adjust planting schedules as a result.

"We can say, 'This cropping system with this management practice typically loses that amount of nitrogen,'" said Archontoulis. "'However, the other combination of cropping system could reduce nitrogen loss and improve productivity by X%, so this is a better strategy to move forward.'"

Archontoulis said the research begins across the Midwest this summer.




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Three members of Nebraska's student-run climate advocacy organization Students for Sustainability were among the youngest participants at the recent Citizens Climate Lobby conference in Washington, D.C.

Evalina Sain, executive director of the group and an incoming senior at Omaha Central High School, said one of their takeaways is how many values farmers and environmentalists share. She pointed out although some city dwellers may be inclined to tell farmers what they should be doing differently, farmers are, in her words, "some of the most sustainable people we know."

"Because they're so incredibly connected with nature, and their values are just rooted in what they can provide for the earth and what the earth can provide for them," Sain noted. "So, really prioritizing our farmers is so crucial as we transition towards a sustainable future within our state."

Sain stressed the nonpartisan nature of the Citizens' Climate Lobby, which starts all its meetings with an "appreciation." Nebraska attendees used the occasion to thank their congressional delegation for supporting the National Center for Resilient and Regenerative Precision Agriculture, which recently broke ground in Lincoln.

Sain added they met with Sen. Pete Ricketts, R-Neb., personally and with legislative staff for the rest of the delegation. One of their "asks" was for lawmakers to prioritize helping Nebraska farmers get Inflation Reduction Act funds for regenerative agriculture.

"If we want them to transition, it shouldn't be such a financial burden on them," Sain argued. "Millions of dollars were dedicated to building this across the nation but it's extremely difficult for farmers to get access to these programs."

Jacki Petrow, a recent Bellevue High School graduate who plans to pursue environmental studies with an emphasis in policy at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, said the conference made her realize climate change doesn't have to be a polarizing issue.

"Being able to be in D.C. and seeing how people come together, especially on these topics like renewable agriculture," Petrow explained, "And learning about how it's really good for everyone has really just cemented my excitement for this topic."

Petrow added the experience also alleviated some of her concerns about environmental studies as a career path.

"We need bipartisan support to get things done, and there is bipartisan support there," Petrow emphasized. "It was really incentivizing and helped me see this as more of a positive future for myself and not like I'm going to have to fight people."


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