Delmarva’s $3 billion poultry industry saw a slight reduction in the number of chicken houses as growers and processors became more efficient
That was the message from an annual report from Georgetown-based Delmarva Chicken Industry.
Information supplied by the five poultry companies that operate on Maryland’s Eastern Shore, on the Eastern Shore of Virginia and in Delaware, show total chicken house capacity declined 0.5 percent in 2016, from 123 million birds to 122.5 million.
The number of chicken houses in operation fell slightly from 4,840 at the beginning of 2016 to 4,700 houses in use at the end of the year.
There have been concerns by residents and some governmental units that the industry was expanding rapidly.
The trade group said “many chicken growers are building modern, efficient chicken houses, replacing more numerous and smaller structures as they do so. The overall effect, though, is in no way a runaway pace of growth in chicken house capacity, as some chicken critics agitating for a moratorium on new chicken house construction assert.”
At the same time, however, the total number pounds of chicken produced rose 4 percent to 4.1 billion pounds, due to what the trade group described as a “commitment to raising chickens efficiently and responsibly.”
Delmarva’s poultry industry used 85.4 million bushels of corn, 35.5 million bushels of soybeans and 1.7 million bushels of wheat. The industry’s total feed bill topped $997 million in 2016, down 1.8 percent from the year before.
Most locally grown corn and soybeans are used to feed Delmarva’s chickens aiding the overall farm economy.Virginia family farms and the local economy many times over. A strong chicken industry that keeps cropland in production also provides an ecological benefit, since farmland produces less pollution per acre than developed land does.
Delmarva Poultry Industry also stated that “farmland produces less pollution per acre than developed land does.”
Payments by chicken companies to contract growers on family farms rose 6 percent in 2016, from $229 million to $243 million. Wages earned by the 14,500 people directly employed by the region’s five chicken companies also rose, by 7.7 percent, to $663 million.
“Nearly every business on Delmarva – including small businesses – is positively affected by the chicken industry,” said Bill Satterfield, DPI’s executive director. “These numbers reinforce just how important the chicken industry is to the region, and they show the industry growing at a calm, sustainable pace. An unwarranted clampdown on Delmarva’s chicken industry would result in widespread economic harm; it would endanger the livelihoods of farmers, chicken company employees and countless others; and it would represent a step back in terms of conservation, by exposing more farmland to development pressure.”
2016 Facts about Delmarva’s Meat Chicken Industry
- Annual broiler/roaster/Cornish production: 594.9 million
- Total pounds produced: 4.12 billion
- Number of broiler/roaster/Cornish houses: 4,700
- Broiler/roaster/Cornish house capacity: 122.4 million
- Broiler/roaster/Cornish and breeder growers: 1,736
- Poultry company employees: 14,500
- Value of chicks started: $189.7 million
- Annual feed bill: $997.1 million
- Bushels of corn used for feed: 85.4 million
- Bushels of soybeans used for feed: 35.5 million
- Bushels of wheat used for feed: 1.8 million
- Packaging and other processing supplies: $220.7 million
- Poultry company capital improvements: $94 million
- Grower contract payments: $243 million
- Wholesale value of broilers/roasters/Cornish: $3.21 billion
