What’s going on in the livestock markets these days? It depends on which sector you’re referring to. Dr. Brenda Boetel, agricultural economics department chair for the University of Wisconsin-River Falls, said Americans consume a lot of poultry, but the overall amount hasn’t changed much recently.
“It is a very stable protein. U.S. consumers do consume more poultry than any other protein, but we’re very consistent in the amount that we do consume. We have increased slightly, but again, it’s just a very small part. I think the thing is, what happens is consumers go through, and they say, ‘Okay, wait, what is my affordability? What can I purchase? What is it?’ And then it’s like, beef is the most expensive, so we can’t necessarily eat that for every meal, so then we have poultry as well. And so, there’s that consistency, and why that tends to be more stable.”
Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza has definitely affected the poultry supply, but Boetel said the poultry flocks will likely begin expanding in the new year.
“It has. We have seen that. We’re going to start increasing our broilers again in ’26, and we’ll start seeing that increase, and we should see that for turkey as well because of that. But that whole avian influenza creates this disease instability for us, and so when it hits, it has a big impact. Now, the bigger impact tends to be on the turkeys, and we tend to notice that. But then, on the other hand, the turkey is a small percentage of our overall poultry consumption.”
Turning to the pork market, Boetel said producers have seen 20 consecutive months of profitability.
“Yeah, according to Iowa State’s analysis, farrow-to-finish producers have seen 20 months, exactly, of profitability. That’s huge. That’s a great streak, and it shows where we have the potential for it. What we’ve seen, though, is that, because of this profitability, you would have thought that there would be this greater expansion in pork. And right now, based in when we look at December, the December report that came out, we see that the breeding herd is smaller, and we continue to decline it. Well, again, what we’re seeing for why a lot of that is, is just that producer confidence isn’t great. There still is a lot of concern about housing regulations, there’s still concern about packers and capacity, and whether they’re going to lower any more of that.”
She’s a little surprised at the lack of pork herd expansion, especially when considering the high price of beef at U.S. grocery stores.
“Exactly. They just haven’t taken that headwind that they’ve had. And it’s just whether or not, it’s just that consumer confidence that’s right there, and they just haven’t taken advantage of that.”