Turkey

Per capita availabiity of red meat and poultry is projected higher in 2025 and 2026.

California’s Proposition 12 has devastated family farms, fueled market consolidation and increased food costs. Legislators brought forward The Food Security and Farm Protection Act to protect farmers and consumers from “burdensome government overreach.”

USDA Secretary Brooke Rollins says the agency is hyper-focused on poultry, but no vaccine is yet available. The agency has ‘separate work streams’ to address the virus in the ‘cattle and dairy’ industries, but dairy is not part of USDA’s primary focus for now.

Whole turkeys may be losing their grip as the dominant center-of-plate choice for Thanksgiving dinner, according to the latest report from CoBank’s Knowledge Exchange.

It was a seasonally quiet week in grocery store meat departments and up the distribution chain for turkeys and hams, reports Steiner Consulting Group in the Daily Livestock Report. Here’s a look at pork, turkey and beef.

As a last-minute shift toward small-scale celebrations upends demand for the star of Thanksgiving tables, turkey producers and retailers are scrambling to fill orders for lightweight birds and partial cuts.

USDA reported an outbreak of highly pathogenic avian flu in a turkey flock in southern Indiana on Feb. 9. This is the nation’s first outbreak in a commercial poultry operation since 2020.

USDA’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) confirmed the presence of highly pathogenic H7N3 avian influenza (HPAI) in a commercial turkey flock in Chesterfield County, S.C.

Total 2019 meat production in the U.S. is currently projected to reach another record level of 103.3 billion pounds, up 1.3 percent year over year.

After remaining fairly steady from 2008 to 2014, total U.S. meat production began to sharply increase in 2015—and consumers have responded by increasing annual meat consumption by 20 lb. in recent years. Cheaper feed and growing domestic and international demand have factored into growth. With relatively stable feed costs projected for the next couple of years, meat supplies will continue to increase faster than the rate of population growth in the U.S. through 2018, according to the Food and Agricultural Policy Research Institute.

Overall chicken industry profitability so far this year, when adjusted for the mix of products produced has been slightly better than 2016, which was not a good year and far below 2017’s.