Josh Wittmore turned his pickup onto Highway 22 and headed for Madison and the University of Wisconsin campus there. He’d made the trip many times when he attended the UW in the late 1990s, and he remembered it as a pleasant drive. It was but eighty-five miles from his home farm, and only seventy-five miles from Willow River. He was surprised how little traffic had increased since he’d left the county ten years ago— only a car now and then. As he drove south from Montello, he passed the occasional Amish buggy, with a single horse trotting alongside the road, the buggy’s occupants deep in the vehicle’s dark interior shadows.
As he drove, he scarcely noticed the fall colors that were appearing everywhere. The long hills lining the big marshes between Montello and Pardeeville were especially striking, as they were studded with bright red and yellow maples. October was a beautiful time in Wisconsin, but Josh drove on, noticing not much of anything out his window.
Josh planned to think through the questions he wanted to ask his former professor about these relatively new massive hog operations that had sprung up in several parts of the country. He’d done enough exploring on the Internet to learn what was going on in North Carolina, where some of the largest operators did business. He’d learned that one company alone had more than fifteen hundred operations, with seven hundred thousand sows total, in that state alone. That same company operated a slaughter-house there that butchered thirty thousand hogs a day.
All these facts and figures swirled around in his head as he drove, but he couldn’t concentrate. He kept coming back to his meeting with Natalie. He was furious with this woman, conservation warden or not. Nobody had ever accused him of doing something dishonest, but she had. Why would she even think that he would tip off Dan Burman about a possible conservation warden visit? All he said was that he’d interviewed him and saw him slicing up some goat meat. No crime in cutting up your own goat meat. He felt sorry for the man, dirt poor with scarcely enough food to take his big family through the winter.
Josh had met people like the warden before: those who jumped to conclusions before they had all the facts. When people had done this to him previously, he’d crossed them off his list of contacts and tried to avoid them. He couldn’t easily do this with Natalie. But he would try to stay out of her way. He would do his job, and she would do hers, and when they overlapped he’d be cautious, very cautious. But something else had happened at their meeting. Something about Natalie had gotten to him. True, she’d unnerved him with her accusation. She didn’t know how close she’d come to having Josh Wittmore jump up and tell her off. He had a bit of a temper, which had gotten him in trouble before. Now, he was asking himself why he hadn’t said more. Why hadn’t he confronted this badge-wearing, gun-toting woman? He didn’t know why. And that’s what was troubling him as he drove on toward Pardeeville and then south to Arlington, Deforest, and on into Madison.
Evans had sent Josh a permit for the university parking ramp next to Steenbock Library on the College of Agricultural and Life Sciences campus. Josh parked his pickup, walked around the library, and headed up the hill toward Agriculture Hall, to the offices of the Department of Agribusiness Studies. It had been ten years since he’d been in Agriculture Hall, and memories of his college days came flooding back. The agribusiness offices were on the third floor of the old building; the stairs creaked as they did when he had climbed them to the auditorium where several of his classes met. It was in the Agriculture Hall auditorium that he suffered through Professor Evans’s Introduction to Agricultural Economics in 1997. Thinking back to the course, in which he’d received a C, he wished he’d paid better attention. So much of what he wrote about these days required a solid grounding in the economics of agriculture.
He stuck his nose through the Ag Hall auditorium doors—students filled nearly every seat, and a professor stood on stage, pacing back and forth while the students stared at a PowerPoint presentation. The screen was filled with mathematical formulas. Josh remembered his college days, when his math professors wrote with chalk on a huge blackboard that stretched across the front of the big room. PowerPoint seemed an improvement. At least he could read the numbers.
He continued up the stairs to the third floor and found the offices of the Department of Agribusiness Studies, which had been called agricultural economics when he was in school. An administrative assistant directed him to the office of Dr. William Willard Evans, department chair. She gently knocked on the door.
“Come in.” Josh recognized the deep voice.
“Josh Wittmore, good to see you,” said the big man with bushy gray eyebrows and penetrating gray eyes.
“Thanks for taking time to talk with me,” Josh said.
“I always take time for a former student,” Evans responded. Josh wondered if he remembered him—part of him hoped that he didn’t. He had not been a prize economics student. “How can I help?”
“You’ve surely heard that Nathan West Industries has bought land in Ames County for a major hog operation.”
“I have,” said Evans. “Should be an economic boon to the area. That part of Wisconsin could use a boost. Lots of low-income folks there.”
“That’s true,” said Josh. “You may not know that I grew up in Ames County and recently moved back to Willow River, headquarters for our paper since 1868.”
“So how can I help?” asked Evans.
“What can you tell me about Nathan West, beyond what I read on the Internet?”
“Oh, I guess you could say that it’s one of those companies that represent the future of agriculture in this country. The people there seem to know what they’re doing and are doing it well.”
“Aren’t they responsible for driving a bunch of the little family farmers out of business?” Josh asked, trying to dig deeper for his story.
Professor Evans bristled a bit. “Most of the little family farmers drove themselves out of business. Surely not the fault of Nathan West. The world of agribusiness has little room for small-time family farmers. These days, you either learn how to compete, which means getting bigger, or you get out. Simple as that.”
Josh scribbled notes on his pad, making sure to write down Evans’s comments as he heard them. He prided himself on accurate reporting.
“What can you tell me about the difference between contract farming and company-owned farming?” Josh asked.
“Company owned is just what the name implies—the company owns everything, from the land, hogs, and buildings to the feed supply, slaughter-house, and distribution system. Another word for it is vertical integration. I must say, from an economic perspective, it’s the way to go. The company is in control of all segments of the operation. It’s one way to maintain high quality.”
“Not as many risks as dealing with individual farmers who contract with them?” Josh offered.
“For sure,” said Evans. “Hard to control quality when you’re dealing with a bunch of farmers scattered all over the place. Some of them are good managers, many of them not so good.”
“I guess that makes sense. But when the company owns everything, where does it leave these farmers?”
“The good ones find jobs with the company—lots of employment opportunities on these big hog farms. The not-so-good ones, well, they find other work.”
Evans said it in a matter-of-fact way, as if it were a foregone conclusion that the independent family farmer, even one with a contract with a big company, might not have much of a future.
“Nothing especially new about these big agribusiness firms; they are but one example of vertical integration,” Evans continued. “Take the big oil companies; they’re vertically integrated. They own the oil wells, the refineries, and the gas stations where you fill up your car. Nobody in between; they have full control. Nathan West is just like that, except it deals with hogs, not oil.”
“So you think vertical integration in agriculture is a good thing?”
“I didn’t say that. What I said is that’s what’s happening. The free market working at its best. Never want to argue with the free-market system. It’s what made this country what it is today.”
“Milton Friedman’s ideas,” Josh said. Deep in the recesses of his mind he’d remembered an economics lecture about Milton Friedman, a world-renowned economist. Friedman advocated a free market based on as little governmental involvement and control as possible.
“What about the disappearance of the small family farm?” Josh asked.
“Not for me to worry about. My job is to teach, conduct research, and try to understand what’s happening, not make judgments about what should be happening. What should be happening? That’s for the policy guys to debate, the politicians and the farm organizations. That’s their business. My job, and the mission of the Department of Agribusiness Studies, is to provide scientifically based, unbiased research.”
Josh was jotting notes as fast as he could, writing while looking at Evans, a technique he’d learned some years ago. When he looked at people, they kept talking. When he looked down to write, they tended to stop.
“Anything else you’d like to share?” asked Josh. He tried to keep his voice steady and not reveal in his questions or his demeanor how he really felt about the responses to his questions.
“If you want some cutting-edge research information, I suggest you schedule a meeting with Dr. Randy Oakfield and sit in on one of his lectures. He’s one of our new hires, did his doctorate at Cornell.”
Evans paged through some papers on his desk and picked one up. “The title of his dissertation was ‘Vertical Integration in Agriculture: An Economic Analysis.’ It’s a good, solid piece of work. He and his graduate assistant, Emily Jordan, she’s new too, have a grant proposal pending for a study of vertical integration in the pork industry.”
“I’ll do that; thanks for the suggestion,” Josh said as he jotted down their names. “I won’t take any more of your time. It was a pleasure talking with you. And thanks for the good information.”
“Any time,” Evans said. “Always here to help. I especially like to work with former students.” Josh couldn’t decide if he meant what he said or not.