This report by the Pew Environment Group examines 50 years of data from federal and state governments in the United States to examine the shifts in the poultry industry. The study highlights the shift from many smaller farms to fewer large farms, as well as a 1,400% increase in the number of chickens raised and slaughtered, as having a detrimental impact on the environment. The report makes recommendations to reduce the environmental impact of poultry production.

Excerpts from report summary:

“[C]hicken has become the No. 1 source of meat consumed by Americans, surpassing beef and pork by a significant margin. This shift in demand has been accompanied by a major change in how and where chickens are produced in the United States. As poultry consumption has grown, the number of businesses that raise the animals has dropped significantly, and the nature and geography of those operations have also changed.”
“In 2011, a historically small number of operations, controlled by even fewer meat processing companies, known as integrators, dominates the production of American chicken. The size of individual operations has grown just as dramatically, and now the typical broiler chicken—a chicken raised for its meat— comes from a facility that produces more than 600,000 birds a year. These large-scale operations occupy a limited geographic area known as the American Broiler Belt. In many instances, they pose difficult environmental challenges for nearby and downstream communities.”

“Industrial poultry operations generally dispose of broiler waste by spreading it on open fields or cropland. However, many of them have little cropland associated with their facilities. As a result, an increasing number of farms and counties have more manure than can be used by local crops, and pollution problems occur when excess nutrients from manure are washed off the land and into local streams, rivers and other bodies of water.”
”The poultry industry has evolved into a streamlined system of industrial mass production. But the requirements for responsible waste treatment and disposal have not kept pace…Unless the inadequate policies and practices that govern industrial poultry production are reformed, environmental challenges will grow as broiler production continues to rise.”

“The Pew Campaign to Reform industrial Animal Agriculture recommends the following changes:”

• Caps on total animal density.
• Shared financial and legal responsibility for proper waste management between farmers and corporate integrators.
• Monitoring and regulation of waste transported off concentrated animal feeding operation (CAFO) sites.
• A requirement that all medium and large CAFOs obtain Clean Water Act permits.