Corporate Chickens and Community Conflict in East Texas: Growers’ and Neighbors’ Views on the Impacts of Industrial Broiler Production

This is Authors Accepted Version of the article published in 2005 by Culture and AgricultureThis paper employs a case study approach utilizing both historical and interview methods to investigate the community impacts of the industrialization and globalization of the broiler industry in East Texas. The rapid expansion of the chicken CAFOs (confined animal feeding operations) created tensions and conflicts between the growers and their neighbors. While the neighbors tended to focus on substantive issues such as odor nuisances, water quality, health concerns, property values, and community disruption, the growers tended to minimized these assertions and charge the neighbors with being jealous of their economic success. The focus on grower/neighbor perceptions of the community impacts of the chicken houses contexted within a socio-historical perspective is a unique contribution to the literature.Sociolog