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Clougherty to liquidate 9,000 sows.

Article Excerpt
BY the time a ballot issue to do away with sow gestation stalls goes before California voters this fall, there might not be any left. The only major breeding operation in the state is converting to a finishing-only facility and taking 9,000 sows out of production.

Clougherty Packing-Farms Division, a farrow-to-finish complex near Corcoran, Cal., supplies pigs for the Farmer John processing plant in Los Angeles, Cal. Hormel purchased Clougherty Packing in 2004.

Employees at the Corcoran farm were told in early January that the operation will transition to a finishing site by October. It was also announced that up to 70 of the 100 employees will lose their jobs by the time the transition is completed.

"The farm is doing what it has to do to remain a viable production facility," said Clougherty spokesman Steve Duchesne. "You've been maintaining livelihoods for some people for 10-15 years or more, so it's a difficult thing to look at them and tell them many jobs are going away."

Steep increases in feed and fuel and the threat of new regulations made it increasingly difficult for the farm to remain competitive, Duchesne said.

Pigs from an existing 14,000-sow...

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