chicken

The USDA confirmed the second case of highly pathogenic avian influenza in southern Tennessee since March 4, in a 55,000-bird broiler-breeder flock less than two miles from the first outbreak in Lincoln County. "Depopulation has begun," a standard step to prevent spread of the bird flu virus that can wipe out an infected flock in two days, said USDA.

A San Francisco Bay-area food technology company served its test-tube chicken strips, grown from self-reproducing cells, to a handful of taste-testers, says the Wall Street Journal, "and the product tasted pretty much like chicken, according to people who were offered samples." The debut of Memphis Meat was the latest advance of "clean meat."

The Alabama state veterinarian issued a "stop movement" order affecting poultry because of three suspected cases of bird flu in northern counties that border Tennessee, said the state Department of Agriculture and Industries. The incidents follow the confirmation of highly pathogenic avian influenza on a broiler-breeder farm in southern Tennessee last week.

Pilgrim's Pride, a subsidiary of Brazilian meatpacking giant JBS, will expand its organic and antibiotic-free chicken production capacity by buying GNP Co. for $350 million in cash, said the Denver Post. GNP, based in St. Cloud, Minn, produces organic and antibiotic-free chicken. Pilgram's Price is the second-largest U.S. poultry processor.

In a rare bit of positive news about the U.S. diet, Americans upped their seafood intake by a pound last year to 15.5 pounds, according to the annual Fisheries of the United States Report released by NOAA last week. Even though that only amounts to about four extra seafood meals per person per year, it constitutes the “biggest biggest leap in seafood consumption in 20 years," says NPR.

Chinese officials in Shangdong Province have ratified the country’s first government-backed recommendations for how to slaughter chickens, says the New York Times. The guidelines, which were are not mandatory, are both an attempt to quell activists’ concerns and corner the export poultry market, which increasingly calls for more humane animal production.

The domestic chicken could become the defining symbol of the current geological age, says The Guardian. Many scientists are calling the present era the “Anthropocene,” because it is marked by human impact on earth. And that includes the chickens we have kept and slaughtered ever since villagers in southeast Asia first captured its slow-flying ancestor, the red junglefowl, 7,000-10,000 years ago.

Some 16 percent of U.S. red meat and poultry will be exported this year, a 900-million-pound increase from 2015, according to USDA estimates, which call for a modest increase in the new year. Sales were constrained last year by the strong dollar and trade barriers due to the bird flu epidemic.

Seven separate outbreaks of salmonella this year have been linked to backyard chicken flocks, resulting in 66 hospitalizations, the CDC said. One person who was hospitalized also died, though salmonella was not considered a factor in the death.

The USDA’s Food Safety Inspection Service (FSIS) will grant poultry processors more time to comply with the agency’s new salmonella and campylobacter standards, giving fowl farmers until July 1 to implement the stricter guidelines.

The Obama administration is pushing back against critics of its plans to overhaul fair-play rules for livestock marketing, saying opposition to the rules "demonstrates a complete lack of concern for honest, hard-working families." Congress repeatedly blocked USDA from issuing the rules but USDA has a window of opportunity that may close at the end of September, says DTN.

Grocery shoppers will pay lower-than-expected prices for beef, poultry and dairy products, thanks to the strong dollar and larger meat production, said the monthly Food Price Outlook. For beef, the change in price would be dramatic — down by 2.5 percent this year after two years of steep increases.

Perdue will no longer require farmers to request permission before visually or audibly documenting their chicken operations, says Tom Philpott in Mother Jones.

Poultry workers say they are routinely denied bathroom breaks, according to a report by Oxfam America, based on interviews with workers at some of the nation's biggest poultry companies, including Tyson Foods, Perdue and Pilgrim's over the last three years.

The winner in 2013 of a challenge against China over chicken products, the United States is going back to the WTO to force China to remove antidumping and countervailing duties.

A new survey of more than 500 poultry workers in Arkansas found that 62 percent had experienced some kind of wage violation (e.g. not being paid or being deducted unfairly for safety gear) and 44 percent reported being verbally or sexually harassed.

New federal standards are in effect to reduce illnesses caused by campylobacter and salmonella bacteria in ground chicken and turkey meat, said the USDA.