USDA Expects Better Days Ahead For Meat Industry

Things in the beef, pork, and broiler sectors may look bleak at the moment, however, as USDA Outlook Chairman, Mark Jekanowski put it, "Many of these supply chain challenges are going to be resolved in the weeks and months ahead.

However, the USDA Outlook Chairman added.

"It doesn’t necessarily mean that we’re going to be back to capacity levels like we had pre COVID-19 just because packers still are gonna have to do things to maintain social distancing and there’s going to be other factors that are likely going to impede their capacity," Jekanows said. "But we do expect things to rebound."

And so for 2021 USDA projecting beef production to increase from this year by about 6.5%, pork products by 3%, broilers a bit over 2.5%, turkey output by a little under 1%. He noted if you add it all up, you get next year’s total meat production rising about 3.5%, prices to producers also improving.