The number of farms contracted to raise chickens for slaughter dropped by a third from 2002 to 2022. At that same time, the number of chickens raised on these farms grew 6%.
There were more than 20,000 farms in the country that raised broiler chickens, or chickens raised for meat processing, in 2002. Twenty years later, that number declined 32%, according to U.S. Department of Agriculture census data.
Nearly every chicken in the country is raised under a production contract, where major meat processors own the birds and the feed, while farmers are tasked with caring for the animals — and taking on debt to operate the farm.
In the last 20 years, the nation routinely produced more than 8 billion chickens raised under contract, fluctuating little in that time period.
The U.S. is the largest producer of broiler chickens, with Americans eating more chicken than any other country.
