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Page 6 Grassroots November 2011
Commodity report: Poultry
Impact on local economies is not just chicken feed
By Alan Knight
aknight@nyfb.org
The story of poultry production in
New York can be summed up by that
trite old expression: location, location,
location.
There is, of course, more to it than
that: globalization, vertical integration,
transportation costs, access to low-cost
grain (which depends on transportation
costs—fuel costs—and thus location),
regional competitive advantage
(another way of saying location), environmental
regulations (often a function
of population density and thus location)
and entrepreneurial personalities.
New York’s poultry business isn’t
what it used to be. Nor will it remain
what it is.
Egg production and broiler production
were widely scattered in the early
and mid 1900s. Entrepreneurs grew
their birds within a three-hour drive
of major cities. Two- and three-story
chicken houses were common in Maine
and around Fitchburg, Mass., to serve
the Boston market, and in the Catskills
to serve New York City. As many as 7.5
million ducks per year were produced
on Long Island around1950.
Beginning in the late 1950s and early
1960s, suburban expansion began to collide
with animal agriculture, leading to
environmental regulations and the cost
of complying.
Out-of-state competitors
By the 1970s, completion of the interstate
highway system meant Ohio
eggs and Georgia broilers (and even
processed ducks from Indiana and Wisconsin)
could be hauled into northeastern
cities in less than 24 hours. Those
eggs and those broilers, produced with
cheap nearby grains, often could—and
did—out-compete locally produced
poultry products.
The shape-shifting of New York’s
poultry business had begun.
The shrinking of Long Island’s
duck industry serves to illustrate these
points. Begun in the 1880s by agricultural
entrepreneurs, the duck-farming
industry there had 90 producers in
the 1930s and 70 in the 1950s. A collision
of factors shrank the industry
to 48 producers by 1963 and only three
today: “normal” consolidation, suburban
and summer-home encroachment,
and manure management problems. All
those millions of ducks made a mess
of streams and estuaries and newlyarrived
homeowners were not pleased.
Plus, rapidly advancing suburbanization
gobbled up lands that formerly
produced grain for the ducks. The costs
of cleaning up their act and hauling in
grain from the Midwest were too much
for most Long Island duck producers to
bear.
Numbers tell the story
Look at some historical numbers. In
1934, according to the National Agricultural
Statistics Service, New York State
farmers produced 1.2 million broilers.
By 1957, the number had peaked at
14.6 million. In 1979, it bottomed-out at
520,000 birds and since then has been
erratically inching back up to about
three million. Compared to national
and global production of broiler-birds,
New York’s production is tiny.
How tiny? World broiler production
is expected to reach 76.2 million tons in
2011 (an 18 percent increase over 2006).
U.S. production for 2011 is expected to
hit 16.6 million tons, about 22 percent of
world production.
New York production in 2004, the last
year the National Agricultural Statistics
Service thought it worth publishing
the number for New York, production
was 7,300 tons, or 0.0004 percent of U.S.
Pasture-raised poultry: the doubling in the number of farmers’ markets in New York has encouraged the production of nichemarket
poultry, although it still comprises a very small percentage of the state’s egg and meat-bird production.
production.
New York’s egg production patterns
over the past century have been somewhat
different. In 1934, New York farmers
produced 1.5 billion eggs. New York
egg production peaked in 1944, feeding a
nation at war, with 2.4 billion eggs and
again in 1968, after which statewide production
began to slide steadily and hitting
bottom in 1997 at 931 million.
In 2006, New York farmers produced
83.3 million dozen eggs. U.S. farmers
produced 5.3 billion dozen. China produced
25.3 billion dozen. Worldwide
production was 61.1 billion dozen. In
the period 1986-2006, China increased
its output of eggs 450 percent.
New York egg production has been
holding steady since 2001.
On a world scale, New York’s production
may be small. But statistics can be
misleading. Impact on local economies
cannot be ignored.
“Poultry is still the number one agricultural
enterprise in Sullivan County
today,” said Jerry Skoda, former Cornell
Cooperative Extension agricultural
agent in Sullivan County. “We currently
have two large egg complexes; the two
large duck farms operating at several
locations; a very large broiler producer
who owns several of the former egg
complexes and has several contract
growers, and has built new buildings.
We also have a large number of new
farmers producing natural, organic,
free-range, and pastured eggs and meat
birds.”
Farmers’ Markets to the rescue
The rapid increase in the number of
farmers markets in New York (235 farmers
markets in 2000; approximately 500
this year) is also having a noticeable
impact on small-scale poultry production.
“Meat is becoming increasingly
popular at farmers markets and we find
more meat producers in markets each
year,” says Diane Eggert, executive director
of the Farmers Market Federation
of New York. But that includes all
meats, not just poultry. And I find eggs
to be a market staple.”
The shape-shifting continues.
Helping entrepreneurs
find that golden egg
Numerous New York Farm Viability
Institute projects focus
on helping farmers identify
enterprise options and access
new markets. One such
project helped North Country
farmers identify alternatives
that would most effectively
utilize their production resources.
Cooperative Extension
educator Bernadette
Logozar worked with Todd and
Michelle Asselin of Harmony
Hills Farmstead in Duane, N.Y.
to identify alternatives and develop
a business and marketing
plan. They currently raise
Cornish cross birds for meat,
layers, rabbits, turkeys, swine
and beef. Today, the Asselins
have a thriving and growing
direct farm marketing business
that utilizes a website, on-farm
sales, drop location delivery
and a farmers’ market.