The farm gods have thrown a lot at the U.S. poultry industry over the past six years. Yet despite the effects of a global pandemic, rising input costs, avian flu and, more locally, a freak winter storm, Arkansas’ industry finds itself with a lot to feel good about.
“As you look at Arkansas’s agricultural economy, obviously, agriculture’s the No. 1 industry in the state, and poultry’s the No. 1 commodity in Arkansas,” said Blake Rollins, president of The Poultry Federation. “The way I would think of poultry is we’re an engine of opportunity.”
According to The Poultry Federation’s statistics, Arkansas’ poultry industry, represented by broilers, eggs and turkeys, generated $6.7 billion in agriculture cash receipts in 2024, or 53 percent of all the state’s ag receipts combined. Broilers make up the vast majority of that economic impact, representing 44 percent of the state’s total agricultural cash receipts by themselves.
The figure is the latest chapter in an unqualified success story. In 2017, cash farm receipts for poultry totaled about $4.6 billion, according to statistics compiled by the University of Arkansas Division of Agriculture Research and Extension. In the COVID-19-impacted year of 2020, that number slipped to $3.7 billion…