The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) is projecting production of broilers, turkeys and eggs to rise in 2017, according to estimates in its most recent World Agricultural Supply and Demand Estimates (WASDE) report, issued on January 12.
The report compares total production figures from 2015, year-end estimates from 2016 and projected production statistics for 2017.
Broiler production, according to the WASDE report, saw a moderate increase in 2016, while the turkey and egg production in the United States saw much more substantial increases. Those increases are largely attributable to the rebound of those industries following the avian influenza outbreak of 2015 and the toll it took on layer and turkey flocks during that year.
Citing the latest hatchery data, USDA is calling for broiler production in 2017 to increase from 40.7 billion pounds to 41.6 billion pounds. The latest forecast for 2017 turkey production is 6.1 billion pounds, up from just under 6 billion pounds in 2016. Egg production is also expected to see an increase in 2017. The agency is forecasting 8.56 billion dozen eggs to be produced in 2017, which would be a notable increase from the 8.4 billion dozen eggs produced in 2016.
USDA releases its WASDE report on a monthly basis, and also offered projections for 2017 in the report it released in December 2016. Its January forecasts for 2017 U.S. broiler and egg production were raised slightly from those made in December, but the projections for U.S. turkey production in 2017 were unchanged when compared to the previous month.
The next WASDE report is scheduled to be released on February 9.
