…The chicken or the egg?

Poultry is not my expertise, nor is it my favorite meat to have at a meal. However, I recently started a position at my company in poultry marketing, and I have to say, the industry is fascinating.

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

Through advances in research and technology, the business of raising chickens and turkeys has changed dramatically over time. See this video for an inside look at a primary breeder farm, one of the only parts of the poultry industry not included in the vertically integrated system. This farm focuses on producing females for broilers (the chicken we all eat) and males for breeding. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aJ7rrHYmFiQ)

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.

 When it comes to making meat, they ain’t no chicken… Get it? J

Your fill-in poultry “expert,”
Cassie Kniebel

ULS Secretary Rodman - Success!

Well, Secretary Rodman spoke about Kansas Agriculture in the year 2025 on Monday night and we are thrilled with the turnout - almost 250 people showed up to learn more about our state's most important industry. Thanks to all who attended and we hope you gained a better perspective of Kansas' role in global agriculture.

As previously announced, the hashtag #ULSRodman was the handle to follow and there were some great tweets by the audience. We've also included some pictures from the evening.

A great turnout for our guest, Secretary Rodman

Secertary Rodman addressed many important issues including water conservation, population and food interactions, future opportunities for young people in agriculture and the desire and capability for Kansas agriculture to expand and meet global food demand.

Thanks again for all who attended - we appreciate your support of agriculture, Food For Thought and bridging the gap!

Until next time,

~ Buzzard ~

Factory Farming will Feed the World

I don’t like the term “factory farming”. I frankly don’t think it exists. In my mind it is nothing more than a simple-minded attempt to abolish the way of life 2% of the US population enjoy passing down through generations – kind of like picking a fight with a kindergartener at our age. I just used it in the title to catch your attention. Did my gimmick work? Keep reading.

A mere 2% of our population produces safe, nutritious and surplus food for our country and the world. The topic of hunger is one that hits everyone hard. Somewhere in the ranks of 1 billion people, as of 2009, are currently going about life hungry. These people walk the streets in countries around the world, including the US and is a widespread crisis.

World leaders look to agriculture to solve these problems. While agriculture in the US is dealing with anti-agriculture activists on a daily basis and spending millions of dollars to promote the positives of the industry to US consumers, the rest of the world is looking to agriculture to solve the immense hunger problem. Ag producers are trying to introduce the American consumer to the face of farmer or rancher while dispelling myths about factory farming and large-scale mechanized food production. Agriculture is fighting a different battle in the US, while the rest of the world needs it to help fight hunger.

At a recent United Nations meeting, the Summit on the Millennium Development Goals in New York, James Borel, Dupont executive vice president, hammered this thought home. “Agriculture is the primary driver to abate hunger and reduce poverty. Throughout history, agriculture prosperity has led to successful economies,” he comments.

Wait, wasn’t Dupont just being bashed in US popular media for biotechnology practices in crop production? Biotechnology, which undoubtedly only benefits the factory farms and evil, smoke-out-the-ears caricature of ‘farmers’ who run them. Yeah, that’s how the video went.

Dupont and other US crop seed companies have created efficient, sustainable, drought and insect resistant seeds through biotechnology. But we can’t just take our biotechnology into a developing country, teach farmers how to plant our more efficient biotech crops, fly back to the US and celebrate because we solved the problem. Those farmers will see success in the first crop. Yields will be tremendous, but there will be no infrastructure to support the surplus. Next year they will be frustrated, we won’t provide them with biotech seeds again, and they will return to how it used to be.

The point? Solving hunger and increasing overall food production around the world is a complex problem that can’t be solved with one answer. I believe what Borel says in that agriculture is in the answer, but I don’t think it is THE answer. We can battle hunger with an intricate plan including economic and agricultural development around the world.

Just my two cents,

Tera Rooney

Efficiency in Ag Benefits Environment

Efficiency, in my opinion, is what made our country so dominant in the past. The productivity that comes from American companies innovating new ways to do more with less is what spurred our international success.

However, somehow, efficiency has become a dirty word when it comes to food and agriculture. There's a scene in Food, Inc. where the narrator talks about McDonald's revolutionizing the way hamburgers were made by bringing efficiencies such as training to do just one thing to the back of the restaurant. "It was inexpensive food, and it tasted good," the narrator says - like that's a bad thing.

I propose that turning away from efficiency when it comes to agriculture is not just regressive but also dangerous. Just 1/32 of the earth’s surface is arable land we can depend on to produce food. This is a finite resource – one that is decreasing with urban sprawl. Additionally, this land is going to have to feed a rapidly growing world population.

Feeding more people with less land? Sounds like efficiency is going to have to play a pretty big role.

Critics of modern agriculture claim current mass production practices are wasteful. This couldn’t be further from the truth. Being efficient means doing more with less – which includes using less environmental resources. A recent study backs this up.

According to the study released last month, advances in productivity over the past 30 years have reduced the carbon footprint of modern beef production in the U.S. The study was conducted by Washington State University assistant professor Jude Capper and compared the environmental profile of the U.S. beef industry in 2007 to its historical production practices in 1977.

Capper’s research revealed improvements in nutrition, management, growth rate and processing weights significantly have reduced the environmental impact of modern beef production and improved its sustainability.

Another study shows the dairy industry reduced its overall carbon footprint by 41 percent from 1944 and 2007. Improved efficiency has enabled the U.S. dairy industry to produce 186 billion pounds of milk from 9.2 million cows in 2007, compared to only 117 billion pounds of milk from 25.6 million cows in 1944.