The Pilgrims Pride Corporation has announced plans to invest $535,000 in Ellijay as part of its Hometown Strong Initiative.
The news was announced at March’s Gilmer County Board of Education work session. Pilgrims’ parent company JBS Foods has invested $50.3 million as part of the initiative in communities across the country.
“In the summer, early fall of last year, our parent company JBS, with the trials and tribulations you all have incurred in the educational process, wanted to do something for our community to show our appreciation,” said Pilgrims Ellijay complex manager Randy Long.
Plans are to build a facility that will provide hands-on experience to students and expand their understanding of careers in agriculture.
“Here in Ellijay, we’ve been allotted $535,000 to spend in our community,” Long said. “We’ve earmarked $400,000 of that to build an experimental/research farm out at the Clear Creek Agriculture Complex.
“It’s basically a 200x40 (foot) building with meeting rooms. It’s a fully functional poultry house divided into two halves,” Long said. “Each half will have its own feeding systems and water systems.”
The facility will house broilers, and any profits will be funneled back into the system. Students will also be afforded the opportunity to visit the local Pilgrims plant to observe the food processing side of the business.
“There will basically be a contract with the ag department, with Mr. (Michael) Bushey,” Long said. “The farm will be paid on a square foot weekly basis. Those funds garnered by the facility will remain with the board of education.
“We’re very excited about furnishing these funds to shore up our community as far as we are the largest employer in five counties. This is something where we feel like we can give back and it still gives us an area to do meaningful research for our industry for our county.”
The facility will be a fully functional farm with an incinerator, cake machine and its own water source.
Students will be able to run tests at the facility and research the most efficient growing methods and examine best practices. Chicks, younger breeders and older breeders will be separated and have their own bins for feed delivery. Growth rates will be observed to determine breast and dark meat yields.
“Hopefully, some of these students who go to secondary education come back, and I hope to put them to work (at Pilgrims) across the street,” Long said.
After all the ink on the paperwork has dried, the plan is to break ground as early as April.
“This is exciting and has never been done,” Bushey said. “As far as I know, we’ll be the only high school ag program in the country that will have anything like this. I think there will be a learning curve, but at the same time, something that is really cutting edge.”