It sounded like another aspect of all that was that Del Monte may have partially or wholly roped them in to exclusive supply deals, cutting way down on their ability to deal with other potential canners or whatnot.

When farmer Craig Watts did his exposé on Purdue, it sounded a lot like a share-cropping / coal-mining situation, in which the chicken farmers had little real autonomy, and became super-reliant on Purdue for everything. Doesn't sound quite as bad in this Del Monte situation, but some similarities hit me.