Source:  MEATINGPLACE.COM, 1/6/11

A Sanderson Farms chicken processing plant proposed for Nash County, N.C., would pump more than $5.5 billion into the local economy over a decade, according to a consultant’s study cited in a news article.
The report’s release comes in the same week that opponents of the plant unveiled a survey suggesting that 61 percent of area voters oppose the plant.

The Carolinas Gateway Partnership, a business recruiting group that supports the proposed plant, hired consulting firm 4ward Planning, whose study looked at the potential economic impact of the project over 10 years in Nash, Edgecombe and Wilson counties.

The $5.5 billion figure encompasses the facility’s construction, spending by local corn and chicken growers, and indirect household spending by workers on everything from health care and other professional services to retail.

The plant, with its estimated 1,100 new jobs, would be a “shot in the arm” for the local economy at a time when forecasters are calling for only modest economic improvement in the coming years, John Gessaman, chief executive of the Carolinas Gateway Partnership, told The Rocky Mount Telegram.

“The (economic) environment we’re operating in currently doesn’t appear to be changing in the near term,” he said. “This would be one way we could change the equation.”

Nash and Wilson county residents are also reportedly working on plans to become Sanderson Farms shareholders so they can raise their objections to the plant at the company’s annual meeting in February.

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