The egg production and processing industry has a significant impact on Iowa's economy. And if consumer demand for eggs continues to increase and Iowa continues its commitment to grow the industry, expansion of Iowa's egg industry will continue.

Iowa leads the nation in egg production, producing more than the second and third largest states combined. There were approximately 52.7 million layers in Iowa produced 13.9 billion eggs in 2007. This level of production consumes 50 million bushels of corn and 453,000 tons of soybean meal. In...

A 2007 survey of US pork producers indicated that nearly two-thirds of US hogs are produced by less than 200 firms marketing 50,000 or more hogs per year. We estimate that 27 operations marketing at least 500,000 hogs a year sold 43% of US hogs in 2006. The next 164 operations marketing between...

Participants in U.S. markets for live cattle increasingly rely on federal grading standards to price slaughtered animals. This change is due to the growing prominence of ﾓgridﾔ pricing mechanisms that specify explicit premiums and discounts contingent on an animal's graded quality...

After controlling a variety of feeder cattle characteristics and market and sale conditions, we estimate the price premiums for preconditioning (vaccinations and minimum 30 days weaning) claims with and without third-party certification (TPC) as $6.15/cwt and $3.40/cwt, respectively, in Iowa...

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The declining share of beef in total U.S. meat consumption has motivated industry-ï¾­wide efforts to improve average beef quality through more effective coordination among the various market participants. Increased use of explicit "grid" pricing mechanisms over the last decade represents...

Based on an econometric analysis of the data obtained from a survey of meat plants (n=53 ) in Iowa in summer 2007, this paper identifies the factors impacting the meat plants’ voluntary adoption of forward and backward traceability activities. The results suggest that the ownership type...

The Iowa turkey industry is an important agricultural value-added activity providing income and employment opportunities for rural areas in Iowa. The 8.54 million turkeys produced and more than 14 million birds processed in Iowa each year require nearly 2000 full-time equivalent employees....

Traditional break-even/fed cattle price projections do not provide adequate risk information to feeders, investors, lenders, and other stakeholders interested in cattle feeding decisions. The objectives of this study were two-fold: 1) develop a spreadsheet model that could estimate the net...