The farms that supplied the chicken giant weren't so fortunate. This year, Russian trade looms as the biggest wild card facing the U.S. poultry industry. If Russia's imports grow, so can U.S. poultry exports. China is the chicken producers' next best hope. The Asian giant is the world's second-largest poultry producer, growing 11 million metric tons of edible birds in 1999, or enough for about 38 chicken dinners for every one of China's 1.27 billion people.
China eats much more chicken than it can produce.
Exports there are growing fast, partly because of increased exporter confidence as a result of the nation's entry into the World Trade Organization, according to USDA foreign trade analyst Leanne Hogie. As Chinese markets open to foreign trade, American chicken producers like Perdue stand to gain. Here, poultry is loaded from Pier 3 into the Thorhild. Spend an afternoon at Norfolk's Pier 3 and it becomes even clearer why it's so hard to make money on chicken parts. Loading a refrigerated ship is a throwback to the days before shipping containers and automation.