Commercials featuring upbeat music, smiling farmers, and anthropomorphized chickens—ads generated by companies like Foster Farmers and Pilgrim’s Pride—help make customers feel good about buying some of the nearly 40 billion pounds of chicken produced annually in the United States. But the reality for chicken farmers across rural America is much less pleasant than that depicted on television.

A set of rules proposed under the Obama administration by the Department of Agriculture’s Grain Inspection, Packers, and Stockyards Administration (GIPSA)—known as the Farmers Fair Practice Rules—would provide contract farmers with basic protections and a larger voice within the industry.

The Trump administration, however, has delayed their implementation several times and the future of the rules is uncertain. In the meantime, farmers say they’re not getting a fair deal, and they want the federal government to take action.

According to Barbara Patterson, government relations director at the National Farmers Union, the story of the modern chicken industry started around 50 years ago with something called vertical integration—an arrangement where instead of a small farmer buying feed from one supplier, supplies from another, and sending chickens to a slaughterhouse when they mature, one massive company owns the entire supply chain, with nearly total control.