NOTTOWAY COUNTY, Va. -- It’s been three months since Tyson Foods closed its Glen Allen processing plant, leaving hundreds of workers without a job and poultry farmers across Central and Southside Virginia with empty chicken houses.
For nearly 40 years, chicken farming has been the way of life for Nottoway farmer Roger Reynolds and his family.
"Feeding American people, feeding the world, I mean, that's what we're in the business to do," said Reynolds. "And that's what we want to do.”
But since May, the typical sounds and sights of Triple R Farms have changed.
"It's scary," said Reynolds.
Four broiler houses that used to be home to 144,000 chickens currently sit empty. Reynolds's growing contract with Tyson Foods is no more.
“My daughter that ran these houses, she's had to find other work," he explained. "My youngest daughter that helped on the farm, she's had to find other work."
It’s a similar story for farmer Pete Watson.
"When you stand back here and you look here, and this is empty, it's sad," said Watson. "It's very sad. I still miss waking up in the middle of the night, looking and making sure everything's running."
Tyson Foods paid out the 50 farmers impacted when their Glen Allen processing plant closed, but both Watson and Reynolds are uncertain about their future.
“I'm sitting down here with a million dollars better in buildings that are empty," said Watson. "It's gonna cost me a fortune. I mean, it's basically 90% of my income is off chicken houses."
But it’s not just the poultry farmers feeling the pain.
“I talked to a grain farmer last night, and he said it's gonna cost him at least 20% plus, right now, right off the top of the bat," Watson noted.
Dara Tucker’s family business, Spaulding Equipment, just celebrated its 75th year selling tractors to farmers like Reynolds, but, since the Tyson closure, they’ve already seen a 15% loss in gross sales.
"There are changes and drastic changes in Southside Virginia to some of what our farm landscape looks like," Tucker expressed. "It's kind of a scary thought.”
When local businesses suffer, so does their county’s tax revenue.
For example, in 2017, Nottoway County exported roughly $50 million dollars worth of farm products — it’s largest industry. $40 million of that came from poultry and eggs.
"It's some of the poorest counties in the state," said Reynolds. "We're already struggling with economics, and now you take this away."
"It is an ongoing, fluid, hard conversation that we're having, and decisions that we're gonna have to make here very soon," Nottoway County Supervisor John Roark told CBS 6.
Those decisions include a potential tax rate hike for citizens, something Roark doesn’t want to do and knows many can’t afford.
"The cost for these required services, like landfill, schools, place fire and rescue, all of that is required, and none of that's getting cheaper," he sadly explained.
Roark and leaders in Cumberland and Prince Edward counties have offered up extensive proposals and land to try to entice a new integrator to build a hatchery, feed mill and processing plant in their communities. Nottoway is even considering taking on debt services to make this happen.
"If this fails, it won't be because of a lack of this county government looking out for its local farmers and its local businesses," noted Roark.
But there’s just one big problem.
"The economy is a little uncertain," said Virginia Secretary of Agriculture Matt Lohr. "Interest rates are so high.”
Secretary Lohr, who’s a poultry farmer himself, said the state has been in touch with around 25 companies from the South and Midwest about coming to Virginia.
But because Tyson isn’t willing to sell its Glen Allen plant right now — which isn’t currently being used — or its hatchery and grain mill, which are both operating on a limited capacity, the cost for a new company to start from the ground up is approximately $350 million.
"We're trying to connect as many dots as we can, and investing the resources, but it's just it's a hard go right now," Lohr noted.
"The state and federal government have given grants, tax incentives to all these other companies, distilleries, wineries, everything else and his brother can get something," said Watson.
Lohr said his office is currently working on an economic impact study and potential grants that could be offered up to the first company that says yes.
"We're looking at a couple of million dollars, and we're looking at a cost of $300 million, so it's still not enough, I think, to tip the scales," he explained. "We'll have to see kind of what the overall impact is actually going to be, but it will be substantial.”
Meanwhile, Reynolds fears his time on his land could be running out.
"It's hard to keep a farm this size when you don't have income," Reynolds expressed.
But he’s holding on to hope that maybe a company will take a chance and invest in him and his community to help keep poultry farming in Southside Virginia and its heartland.
"Let's save the American farmer," he said.
CBS 6 reached out to Tyson for a statement on the company selling the processing plant, grain mill and hatchery. We also checked to see how long they plan to run their breeding operation with the two farmers who still have contracts.
Tyson sent the following statement:
“The Tyson Foods team has not yet made any decision on the future of these facilities, as our focus has been on ensuring that our team members and contract growers are taken care of. We provided impacted growers with fair and equitable compensation terms to voluntarily end their relationship with Tyson Foods, and all broiler growers have accepted. We continue to use the feed mill and contract with breeder/pullet growers to produce eggs for the Temperanceville complex.”
Since we spoke to the Nottoway farmers, Tyson also announced the closureof four other processing plants in Arkansas, Indiana and Missouri.
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