021016 Hog Farmers Mull Tyson Buyout OfferOctober 11, 2002Springdale, AR - Dozens of hog farmers in Arkansas and Oklahoma have a week to decide whether to accept buyout offers from Tyson Foods or forge ahead with a lawsuit against the poultry giant. Tyson announced plans Aug. 18 to close company-owned and -leased hog farms and end contracts with 132 hog producers in Arkansas and Oklahoma. The Springdale-based company said the restructuring was intended to reduce operating losses. Eighty pork producers sued Tyson last month, claiming the company abandoned them in the restructuring. Now, the company has given farmers until Oct. 15 to accept a second buyout offer. This time, in addition to buying out the contracts, Tyson would help pay to close the hog barns. Hog farmer Jeff Wilson of Lodi said he is one of about a dozen farmers who have accepted the offer. "We just don't really know what to do," Wilson said. "What good is it going to do to sign a lawsuit if we're going to lose the place anyway? They can tie it up in court for who knows how long." His neighbor, Mike Putz, 34, responded differently. Putz raised 6,843 pigs last year for Tyson's subsidiary, The Pork Group. Putz said Tyson's enhanced offer to buy out his contract totaled about $30,000 more than the original offer, but that wasn't enough to keep him from joining the suit. "I don't want enough money off Tyson to live the rest of my life on, by no means," he said. "I just want to survive. I bought this farm and don't want to live nowhere else. But if I took (Tyson's) settlement, in a year's time, I'd be living on someone else's land in a trailer-house." After the cutbacks were announced, the U.S. Department of Agriculture said it would investigate the decision to end Tyson contracts with the hog farmers. A department spokesman said the investigation will take several weeks.
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