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POULTRY TIMES, January 30, 2012
Viewpoint Compiled by Barbara Olejnik, Associate Editor 770-718-3440 bolejnik@poultrytimes.net
NCC looks for more favorable economic climate By Mike Brown
Special to Poultry Times
WASHINGTON — After many years of reading former National Chicken Council President George Watts’ byline on this Vi e w p o i n t column, I am both humbled and honored to pen my inaugural piece and follow in George’s footsteps — Brown both in this space and in the chair where he sat for 38 years. I can say with utmost sincerity that being afforded the opportunity last June to present George with his induction into the Meat Industry Hall of Fame was the achievement of which I am most proud since succeeding George in March. It was an honor for me to celebrate the value of his vision Mike Brown is president of the National Chicken Council with offices in Washington, D.C.
and foresight and his lifetime of achievement for our industry. George is one of the most important people in the development of the modern poultry business. He joined an elite group of only three other men in the chicken industry to be elected into the Hall of Fame: Colonel Sanders, Frank Perdue and Don Tyson. That is pretty good company.
Inside the beltway 2011 2011 was certainly a challenging year for a chicken industry fraught with record high production costs, bankruptcies, consolidation and onerous regulations. But last year also provided many opportunities for us to thrive and I am happy to report that NCC was on the front lines embracing those opportunities headon with measured success. As we all are aware, chicken companies have been under intense economic pressure from the rising cost of feed grains — much of which is caused by the federal government’s proethanol policies. This is why NCC worked tirelessly for the expiration of two of those
misguided policies — The Volumetric Ethanol Excise Tax Credit (VEETC) and the import tariff on foreign ethanol. Their sunset on Dec. 31 was a culmination of growing concern among the American public and on Capitol Hill, marked in June by overwhelming bipartisan and bicameral votes, which NCC helped to achieve, to end unnecessary federal support of corn-based ethanol. NCC’s feed security task force identified and targeted this issue as a top priority. Last year also saw congressional passage of long-stalled free trade agreements with Korea, Colombia and Panama — a top priority for the council. Once fully implemented these agreements could increase U.S. poultry exports by $102 million and result in 1,200 new jobs in the poultry sector.
2012 outlook After the most challenging economic year in history for the U.S. broiler industry, 2012 should be a much more favorable year, barring any unforeseen problems with feed costs or consumer demand. In a nutshell, it should be a good operating environment for our industry, due to production adjustments allowing higher feed costs to be passed on to the market. Hopefully we will have a more favorable economic climate to operate in 2012 and there is enough growth in the U.S. economy that consumer demand picks up both in the retail and food service sectors. Chicken production will be down in 2012 compared with last year — a slip in output is very unusual for the chicken industry. Only four times in the past four decades have we
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Chicken companies must remain innovative and must work to create successful new chicken products that stimulate the average consumer to eat chicken more often.
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produced fewer pounds than the previous year. If the corn crops are adequate going forward, however, and the ethanol industry
leaves some corn for animal agriculture, I see the chicken industry expanding over the
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