Top Story, May 8, 2012

DPI’s McClain says he sees signs of improvement

By SEAN CLOUGHERTY
Managing Editor

SALISBURY, Md. — The last few years have been some of the most challenging in the poultry industry, but there are signs of improvement, Andrew McClain, president of Delmarva Poultry Industry Inc., told growers and industry representatives at the trade group’s annual booster banquet last month.
Chicken prices are up at the wholesale level, due largely to increased exports and while housing construction remains slow on Delmarva, integrators have been able to stabilize production with reduced flock sizes to maintain normal layout periods, McClain said.
Chesapeake Bay water quality issues “continue to keep us busy” making sure the poultry industry is fairly represented in proposed legislation, McClain said but added that more people are beginning to realize what farmers are doing to reduce nutrient pollution.
“I believe we have made progress in helping past critics understand that we have made immense progress on environmental issues,” McClain said.
Spreading positive messages about raising poultry is an ongoing task for DPI. Shortly after the booster banquet, DPI held a meeting for its grower committee focused on becoming more involved in social media.
DPI is also involved in the production of a television series scheduled to air in 2013 on Maryland Public Television that explores the state’s farming industry and its benefits to the environment.
“We have the opportunity to share our story with the millions of persons not in the chicken industry,” McClain said.
The story that needs more telling, McClain told the crowd of more than 600, is the poultry industry’s impact on the local and regional economy.
The industry itself employs about 20,000 but has a multiplier effect of seven when counting the related businesses that rely on poultry for much of its income. That comes to about 140,000 jobs that are impacted by the poultry industry and McClain said more Delmarva residents need to realize that.
“With a total population of 1.4 million, that impact is huge. This is the vital industry of Delmarva,” he said. “This is an industry which has a strategic interest here in proximity to the northeast markets and which Delmarva has a strategic interest in jobs.”
But not all jobs are created equal, McClain said, and jobs created by raising poultry carry more of a benefit.
“Jobs where we make things which we consume, that if we do not make we must import and if we make more than we need we can export are jobs that create wealth,” McClain said. “Agriculture, by definition, is first in creating those types of jobs.”
“The poultry revolution, which started here on Delmarva in 1923, has done more to create jobs and wealth here than any other single activity. “Now, we should be proud to be a part of it.”