Turkey production is important to the farming sector of North Carolina. In fact, total poultry production – including turkeys, eggs and broiler chickens – is North Carolina’s top agricultural industry, making up 40% of the state’s farm income. Data from the USDA on “turkey disappearance” per capita in the United States indicated a slight uptick from about 16 pounds annually from 2012-2015 to over 16.5 pounds in 2016 and 2017 (projected). As poultry consumption increases across the country and worldwide, North Carolina is likely to benefit.
Here’s what else you should know about turkeys in North Carolina:
33.5 million
Number of birds produced by North Carolina in 2016.
1.2 billion
Number in pounds of turkey produced in 2016 – that’s 35.9 pounds of meat per bird.
2nd
North Carolina’s ranking nationally in overall turkey production, behind Minnesota.
We noted previously that North Carolina saw its peak in total production in 1993 at 62 million birds. However, higher production efficiency and technological advancement have had a major influence in decreases of total bird output, as more meat can be produced by a single bird.
In this instance, North Carolina ranks 2nd behind Indiana in terms of efficiency, or average meat production per bird.
14%
North Carolina’s share of total turkey production, per bird, in the United States.
$993 million
This is the estimate value of North Carolina’s turkey industry in 2016. That’s an additional 224 million dollars from its valuation in 2013!
590
Number of turkey operations with sales in 2012. (Note: the USDA has updated this figure since we last reported on it in 2014.)
41%
Share of state turkey production held by Sampson and Duplin counties in 2016. Sampson produced 8.5 million turkeys (25%) last year, while Duplin produced 5.2 million (16%). This is actually a sizable decrease from 2012, when these two counties produced over half of all of North Carolina’s turkeys.
Lenoir County
This county saw the fastest growth in turkey production from 2015 to 2016 at roughly 10%.
Need help understanding population change and its impacts on your community or business? Carolina Demography offers demographic research tailored to your needs.
Contact us today at demography@unc.edu for a free initial consultation.
Contact UsCategories: Economic Data
Tags: Thanksgiving, turkeys, USDA
In 2020, the NC Counts Coalition provided funding to more than 60 NC-based organizations working to reach the communities most at-risk of being undercounted in the 2020 Census. The Coalition had previously worked with Carolina Demography to create a map…
Completing the FAFSA is strongly and positively associated with postsecondary enrollment. An analysis of data from the National Center for Education Statistics shows that 88% of high school seniors who completed a FAFSA in 2012-13 had attended college by February…
Background Creating structure around data Our clients were, in their words “swimming in data soup.” They often had to collaborate together on county and town-level projects, and wanted to ensure that they were using numbers from the same data sources…