State refuses King’s request for aid

Carroll County poultry growers who recently had their flocks euthanized after the sudden shutdown of Decatur-based Cooks Venture may be left holding the bag after state officials denied a request by state Sen. Bryan King of Green Forest to declare an emergency.

King issued a formal letter to Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders on Friday, Dec. 8, urging her to declare a state of emergency that would allow the state to provide financial compensation for growers and other businesses affected by the Cooks shutdown and the euthanizations.

“We need to provide full compensation to the growers, feed suppliers, and any entity related to helping this situation,” King wrote in his letter to the governor. “The company is under financial duress, and at this time, the state needs to assume responsibility. It is my hope the state can recoup the cost at a later date.”

Wes Ward, secretary of the state Department of Agriculture, responded to King’s request, writing that “because the proper role of government does not include state assumption of private debts, your request has been respectfully declined.”

At a meeting Thursday, Dec. 7, in Green Forest, Patrick Fisk, director of the Arkansas Livestock and Poultry Commission, said he made the decision to euthanize the birds after receiving calls from growers who were unable to feed them or were forced to ration feed.

Fisk said the state “decided to step in from a humanitarian standpoint.”

Some growers at the Green Forest meeting said they had enough feed for their chickens, but they were euthanized anyway. Fisk said Cooks Venture had agreed to assume responsibility for disposal of the birds that had been euthanized.

“What I’m hearing now is some of that’s not being done,” he said.

Richard Butterbaugh, a longtime Carroll County grower, said in a telephone interview before the Dec. 7 meeting that some of his chickens were removed rather than being euthanized.

“They took our birds, really, really small,” Butterbaugh said. “We don’t know where they went, nor what happened to them.”

Butterbaugh said the “normal catching crew from Cooks and the normal trucking company,” showed up to take his birds.

“I asked the trucking company where they were going with my birds and I got no reply,” Butterbaugh said. “The only answer I got was: ‘When I get to the blacktop, I’m supposed to call.’ ” Butterbaugh said a neighbor sent him a video recording of some birds being euthanized by “foaming.”

“I watched it for about five seconds, and then I said ‘I can’t handle this,’ ” Butterbaugh said.

Butterbaugh said many of the local growers for Cooks made significant investments for equipment and retrofitting houses to meet the company’s requirements. He said growers had no inkling that the company was facing financial jeopardy.

“As a matter of fact, on two occasions I had representatives of Cooks in my living room, telling me how things were going, how prosperous they were, how much they were growing, how many stockholders had come on. Everything was good, fine and dandy, keep on truckin’. As a matter of fact, they were still signing contracts for growers the Friday before they shut down.”

Amy Lyman, director of marketing and communications for the state agriculture department, responded to questions regarding the euthanizations, the process by which they are carried out and the responsibility for cleanup and the associated expenses by providing a copy of Ward’s Dec. 8 letter to King.

A telephone message left for Fisk on Monday, Dec. 11, was returned by another department employee who asked that questions be emailed. Lyman answered that email, writing: “Your request has been received. We will be in contact.”

King said he should have been notified by agriculture officials that the euthanizations were being planned.

“They were contacted the day before Thanksgiving,” he said. “They never called me. They should have called the senator. We all know that. They were going to take the company line right off the bat. That’s what they’ve done.”

Cooks Venture could not be reached for comment.

Information for this report was contributed by Dan Marsh of the Madison County Record.