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Chick-News.com Poultry Industry News, Comments and more by Simon M. Shane

Minnesota Bill to Fund Regenerative Chicken Production Wasteful Expenditure

03/04/2020

A bill introduced into the Minnesota legislature would provide $250,000 in grants to the Regenerative Agricultural Alliance to conduct a feasibility study on production of poultry applying regenerative principles. The Alliance claims that 100 farmers are producing 250,000 chickens annually, feeding locally-grown grains under free-range conditions.

 

The proposal flies in the face of both biological reality and economics. The intent to produce 1.2 million chickens a year and to fund a processing plant would represent a waste of resources, starting with the allocation of funds for a feasibility study. The questionable viability of a free-range regenerative project could be calculated in an hour with a pencil and calculator given realistic production parameters including live weight, feed conversion, input costs and value of product. $250,000 sounds like pork!

 

Promoters of the scheme are reminded of the losses sustained by West Liberty Foods in funding a free-range broiler operation intended to satisfy an apparent demand for slow-growing, non-confined broilers.

 

Subsistence, regenerative agriculture, represents a fad appealing to a limited market and simply cannot compete  with commercial production based on inherent inefficiency.

 


 
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