DAVID PITMAN IS a third-generation poultry grower, raising chickens and turkeys with his brother and parents on a property east of Fresno that his grandfather founded in 1954. They’re independent farmers—instead of raising birds for a corporation, they sell directly to wholesalers and stores—and their farming style reflects that freedom. They buy turkeys from a variety of breeds, feed them organic grains, and let them wander over pasture, choices that make the final product very different from the broad-breasted birds raised at industrial scale by national meatpacking companies.
In one way, though, both products are more alike than they are different. The Pitmans have always raised their birds without putting antibiotics in their feed. Now the rest of the turkeys—and chickens and cattle and pigs—raised in the United States are moving that way thanks to federal regulations that went into effect on January 1, 2017.
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