Excerpt from | Oral History Interview with Larry and Betty Kelley, December 9, 1999. Interview K-0511. Southern Oral History Program Collection (#4007) |
Larry Kelley describes the decline of farming in his area. Small farmers started to lose their chickens, then their dairy cattle, then their hogs. In the late 1970s, Larry realized that his investment was exceeding returns on his hog farm, so he started slaughtering them. Larry describes the killing process and what he did with the meat. Many farmers, he says, have contracted out to large companies, which, Larry says, essentially own the animals until they die, at which point the farmer has to eat the losses.