overview
The U.S. poultry industry is the world's largest producer and exporter of poultry meat. U.S. consumption of poultry meat (broilers, other chicken, and turkey) is considerably higher than either beef or pork, but less than total red meat consumption. The United States is also a major egg producer. The poultry and egg industry is a major feed grain user, accounting for approximately 80 billion pounds of feed yearly. With about 14 percent of total poultry production being exported, the U.S. poultry industry is heavily influenced by currency fluctuations, trade negotiations, and economic growth in its major importing markets.

Poultry and egg production is expected to expand in the coming years to meet higher domestic and foreign demand. The growing demand for relatively low-cost, healthy, and convenient meat products is expected to support higher domestic poultry consumption. The opening of trade due to bilateral and multilateral trade negotiations is also expected to boost demand for U.S. poultry products.

contents

• Background
• Trade
• Market outlook
• Policy

features
ERS provides information on issues affecting domestic and international broiler markets and has collected background data for researching or examining the recent incidence of avian influenza in a few domestic broiler flocks.

U.S. 2003 and 2004 Livestock and Poultry Trade Influenced by Animal Disease and Trade Restrictions discusses how animal diseases and disease-related trade restrictions have influenced trade in animal products in the past few years, with an emphasis on 2003 and forecasts for 2004. Disease outbreaks and related trade restrictions have slowed previously expected high growth in many U.S. animal product exports, with U.S. beef exports most affected.

Livestock, Dairy, and Poultry Outlook provides monthly analysis of current developments in the livestock and poultry industry, providing data on animal numbers, meat and egg production, prices, trade, and net returns.

recommended readings
Annual summaries of the forces that shaped the animal products industries during the previous year and how those forces are expected to affect the current year's outlook are available from the Livestock, Dairy, and Poultry Outlook page. Instead of providing a separate report covering all the commodities once a year, we will release summaries for the various commodities in the newsletter as information becomes available.

Savvy Buyers Spur Food Safety Innovations in Meat Processing finds that the market incentives that motivate private firms to invest in food safety innovation seem to be fairly weak. Results from an ERS survey of U.S. meat and poultry slaughter and processing plants and two case studies of innovation in the U.S. beef industry reveal development of a number of mechanisms to overcome that weakness and to stimulate investment in food safety innovation. For the full report, see Food Safety Innovation in the United States: Evidence from the Meat Industry.

India's Poultry Sector: Development and Prospects assess the supply, demand, structure, and policy factors affecting the growth of the Indian poultry industry, including the rise of integrated producers who are fostering improved productivity and reduced marketing costs.

See all recommended readings...

recommended data products
Retail scanner prices for meat contains monthly average retail price data for selected cuts of beef, pork, poultry, lamb, and veal, based on electronic supermarket scanner data.

Standard summary tables provide average retail prices (weighted by quantity purchased) for meat cuts reported by the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
A searchable database, which contains a wider variety of meat cuts, allows users to create custom tables that can be saved as *.csv or *.html files. The tables report monthly weighted-average prices, an index of volume sold (with the monthly average for 2001=100), and the percent of volume sold with feature discounts.

Recent trade data are presented for major meats and livestock on a monthly basis, as well as year-to-date and annual, and for year-to-date imports under tariff-rate quotas. Revisions to the 2003 monthly data were released by the Department of Commerce in July 2004 (these updates have been incorporated into the year-to-date and annual tables). As of July 2004, the trade-related tables contain expanded coverage of additional variables and regions, with historical data available for these additions. Export data are for major U.S. markets; import data are for major supplying countries.

Meat Price Spreads contains data on retail and wholesale values for poultry and eggs and the price spreads for these values, as well as information on average U.S. prices of some retail poultry and eggs.

Poultry Yearbook contains monthly and annual data on production, supply, disappearance, prices, and costs for eggs, broilers, other chickens, and turkeys.

Foreign Agricultural Trade of the United States (FATUS) provides U.S. agricultural exports and imports, volume and value, by country, by commodity, and by calendar year, fiscal year, and month, for varying periods, such as 1935 to the present or 1989 to the present. Updated monthly or annually.

our newsletter
Livestock, Dairy, and Poultry Outlook analyzes and presents short-term forecasts for production, stocks, trade, and per capita consumption of poultry and eggs; examines changes in poultry prices at the wholesale and retail levels.

related briefing rooms
Animal production and marketing issues
Agricultural baseline projections
Farm income and costs
Farm structure
Farm and commodity policy
U.S. agricultural trade

related links
Further information on the poultry and egg industries is available from other USDA agencies.

See all related links...

maps and images gallery
View a map illustrating the value of poultry and poultry products as a percent of agricultural products sales in 1997.

for more information, contact: David J. Harvey
web administration: webadmin@ers.usda.gov
page updated: August 25, 2004