| Food Supply: Price of Foods: Chicken |
The overall civilian consumer cost per head of chicken in current U.S. dollars.
Overall Food Prices Rise
Published Wednesday, May 20th, 2009 by Lacey Loftin
According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, Americans spend on average 12.5% of their budgets on food each year, yet still many find their access to food is shrinking. The price of food is closely related to the initial cost of that food’s ingredients, the energy to create the food, and the fuel to transport the product to market. The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office stated that increased use of ethanol accounted for about 10% to 15% of the rise in food prices between April 2007 and April 2008. According to the Consumer Price Index, the average cost of food rose 5.9% last year as food companies wanted to protect their profit margins. Accordingly, overall food prices rose by 0.3% in April compared with the previous month yet they are still 3.7% lower than they were a year earlier.
Prices for fruits and vegetables also reacted to production costs as vegetables rose 1.4%, yet fruit higher demand offset energy costs, causing prices to fall 3%. Products that rely on biofuels products like corn and wheat rose 7.4%. Meat products, such as beef and pork, chickens and eggs have increased in price; where as dairy products, such as milk, as a whole have decreased 3.1% over last year’s prices. Much of this can be explained by the farm acreage that is utilized by biofuels production and the lower numbers of livestock operations. Another added expense to the prices of food stuffs is the ever increasing price for farm foods packaging.
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U.S. Department of Agriculture: Poultry - http://www.ers.usda.gov/Briefing/Poultry/
The U.S. poultry industry is the world's largest producer and second largest exporter of poultry meat. U.S. consumption of poultry meat (broilers, other chicken, and turkey) is considerably higher than beef or pork, but less than total red meat consumption.
USDA Food and Nutrition - http://www.usda.gov/wps/portal/%21ut/p/_s.7_0_A/7_0_1OB?navtype=SU&navid=FOOD_NUTRITION
The USDA has helpful tools to prevent obesity and diseases with meal planning, trans fat awareness and allergen information on food labels.