Published: September 17, 2009 02:46 pm      

OUR VIEW: Bye-bye, Bo

It's been two-and-a-half years since Bo Pilgrim bought Gold Kist and brought the chicken business in Live Oak to its knees. In fairness to the Pilgrim's Pride patriarch, things would have likely gone bad here even without his help. Feed and fuel prices went up, and a glut in the global poultry market just made things worse.

Now our relationship with Texas-based Pilgrim's is coming to an end. A Brazilian conglomerate, JBS, will rescue Pilgrim's from bankruptcy, taking 64 percent of the company's stock in the process.

The acquisition may well work to our benefit. The new company's sheer size - JBS, with its most recent acquisitions, becomes the world's biggest meat producer - should shield it from many of the market forces that felled Pilgrim's.

But our point lies elsewhere.

Suwannee needs to broaden its economic base so as to insulate us from sudden downturns in a single, isolated market (to the degree any market in a global economy is "isolated"). As we've noted before, we must never again find ourselves in a position where a bad business decision by one board of directors can threaten to endanger the entire local economy, as the Pilgrim's debacle nearly did.

The good news is, local officials are addressing the problem.

The county commission is working hard to attract business at the western end of the I-10 corridor, along US 90, through its Catalyst Project. And the city has shown its commitment to fostering growth through its recent purchase of land on 72nd Trace for well fields to shore up the city's water supply.

We're moving in the right direction. With continued hard work we'll weather the current economic storm and come out the other side even stronger.