According to the USDA Livestock, Poultry and Dairy Outlook June
Report, the United States produces more pounds of chicken, 37.8 million (2013)
to be exact, than any other meat. Add the layers with more than 6.8 million dozen
eggs (2013), and you have a very large and concentrated industry.
Some background on the poultry business is helpful in understanding
how your chicken and eggs are produced. This is a vertically integrated
business, meaning companies control almost every point of production. (See the
diagram below.) Poultry growers, or the people who raise chickens, can be
contracted by a larger company, but it’s important to realize that the
individual sites are usually operated by families. By owning and/or operating
every point of the business, including breeding, growing broilers, raising
layers (the chickens which lay the eggs), and the processing and packaging, a
company can increase efficiencies and decrease costs.
Diagram Credit: http://ag.ansc.purdue.edu/nielsen/www245/lecnotes/unit2.html
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I know many people question the poultry industry on the way
they do certain things. However, one thing we can’t question is how much food
they produce to feed people across the world. The turnaround on producing a
broiler is under 14 weeks which means we can have a lot of chicken in a little
amount of time.
Your fill-in poultry “expert,”
Cassie Kniebel
I know many people question the poultry industry on the way they do certain things.
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