One of the biggest obstacles for livestock farmers around the country is the lack of access to slaughterhouses. Often, the “local” slaughterhouse is the only game in town and has no market incentive to provide good service to customers. It is not uncommon for farmers to get back custom meat that they did not order or to get back meat from animals they did not raise. When farmers complain to the slaughterhouse owner, a frequent response is, “If you don’t like it, you can go somewhere else,” without any offer by the owner to make good on the mistakes that were made. “Somewhere else” could be several hours away, resulting in significant added expense for the farmer and additional stress on the animals. Farmers usually do not have the resources to take the slaughterhouse owner to court and wind up taking a loss without any compensation. Here is the story of FTCLDF member, Neil Perin, a farmer who fought back.

Quality Slaughterhouses Are Hard to Find

As a farmer of rare and endangered livestock who cares about the animals as well as the consumers destined to enjoy the various products we raise, finding a slaughterhouse and processor is one of the most important aspects that most people fail to consider. Today, much like with the farming community in general, there are fewer and fewer slaughtering facilities owned by ever aging folks who close their businesses when they retire because there’s no one to take over for them.

There are a number of issues that arise from this reality, e.g., spending more time looking for a facility, incurring more costs of time and money in traveling further to reach the facility, and contending with the leverage that the few facilities left have over us growers and producers. The sad truth that we face when it is time to have an animal processed is that we must often choose the lesser of many “evils” in selecting a processor—choosing the one we think will make the fewest mistakes and not go out of their way to take advantage of us.

A common reality is dealing with processors who have the attitude, “If you don’t like how we do things or the quality of work we do, go somewhere else. Oh, wait, there is nowhere else!” They know that there is little to nothing we farmers can do if we are dissatisfied with any aspect of their service, or lack thereof. Under these conditions, we at Arcadian Acres find ourselves in the midst of a legal battle in an attempt to right several wrongs we have suffered from one such local processor.