2120 final report.pdf - Agra CEAS Consulting

APPENDIX 2: THIRD COUNTRIESTable A2.35: Leading table egg producing States, February 2004Rank State Number of table egg layers in flocks of 30,000 and above1 Iowa 39,9132 Ohio 26,8313 Indiana 22,5044 Pennsylvania 21,8825 California 20,2266 Texas 14,2597 Nebraska 11,6918 Georgia 11,4039 Florida 10,53010 Minnesota 10,498Source: USDA, NASS, Chickens and Eggs, February 2004.Though the egg industry lagged behind the broiler industry in consolidating and vertically integrating,it was eventually driven in this direction by many of the same influences. The development of highlymechanised technologies to accomplish such tasks as housing, feeding, environmental control, egghandling, and packaging combined with improvements in breeding, nutrition, disease control, andmanagement created an opportunity to realise substantial economies from large scale production. Itis generally considered that operations of 500,000 to 5 million birds are required to realise most ofthese economies.As a proportion of the eggs (for human consumption, i.e. not including hatchery production)produced in the U.S. in 2003, 70.5% were marketed in-shell while the remaining 29.5% wereprocessed (referred to as broken). Breaking in the U.S. is seasonal with the largest share of eggsbroken between May and October. In recent years, breaking has ranged from a seasonal low of 27%to a seasonal high of 33%. Although it has recently stabilised at about 30%, the share of table eggsbroken has approximately doubled over the last twenty years Figure A2.4.365