Dick Bond, the CEO of the world’s largest meat producing company, Tyson, has revealed this week that he is leaving. Considering Tyson’s earnings fell by 68% to $86 million in the last fiscal year, it’s no wonder he decided to leave. But perhaps there is a more straight forward reason for his sudden resignation. Bond is now 61 and if he eats as much meat as you’d expect the CEO of Tyson to, I wouldn’t be surprised if he had a few health issues.
Tyson is not looking healthy either; increased feed prices have taken it’s toll on Tyson and other meat producing companies. It seems Bond still has some faith in the company though, he said “I have a lot of both my time and personal finances invested in Tyson Foods, so I wish the company all the best for future success”. I wonder how long he’ll give it until he moves his investments elsewhere.
Bond has made some unpopular decisions of late. The US Agriculture Department has forecast a chicken production reduction of 1.3% for 2009 and many chicken producers are reducing their production. However, Tyson has been over producing chicken. Market analyst Timothy Ramey said “We were disturbed by the way Mr. Bond seemed unconcerned with his risky strategy of continuing to overproduce poultry”.
Tyson favour the industrialised farming of animals, especially chicken. The chicken are fed a diet of soy and other grains, resulting in the destruction of the Amazonian rain forest as well as abuses human rights. To produce such a damaging ‘product’ is immoral, and even more so if you are deliberately increasing production when you know the demand for it is decreasing.
It’s not a great week for Tyson. Also this week they were ordered to pay a fine of $500,000 after willfully violating worker safety regulations which resulted in the death of an employee.
Tyson are an unethical and unsustainable company, responsible for environmental destruction, animal cruelty and human rights abuses. They are the biggest meat producing company in the world, their products sold in fast food chains, restaurants and supermarkets. But we can stop them. If we don’t eat meat, they have no reason to exist.
