High local feed prices, low national prices shutter mainstream birds

By MITCH LIES
Capital Press

JUNCTION CITY, Ore. -- If you're eating turkey this Thanksgiving, chances are the bird will have come from the Midwest or California.

Turkey production in the Northwest today consists of a few dozen small farms that sell birds to local buyers during the holiday season.

But it wasn't always that way.

Northwest states -- particularly Oregon and Washington -- once ranked among the top turkey-producing states in the U.S.

The Oregon industry rose to as high as fourth in 1945. As recently as the early 1990s, Oregon's annual turkey production regularly topped 2 million birds.

Washington growers raised 1.5 million birds at the industry's peak in 1945. The state's growers raised 225,000 turkeys in 1975, the last year Washington shows up on the national rankings.

Idaho hasn't made the national rankings since the early 1960s, when growers peaked with an annual production of 250,000 birds.

Minnesota is the largest turkey-producing state. According to the National Agricultural Statistics Service, it has an annual production of 45 million birds. California, where 15 million birds were raised last year, is the sixth-largest turkey-producing state.

Turkey has increased in popularity as a sandwich meat, according to an industry spokeswoman. But the industry still relies on Thanksgiving for much of its sales.

This Thanksgiving, an estimated 46 million turkeys will grace dinner tables across the U.S. That's about one-fifth the annual U.S. consumption of turkey.

"They don't call it turkey day for nothing," said Sherrie Rosenblatt of the National Turkey Federation. "We're thankful for turkey day."

Most attribute the demise of the Northwest turkey industry to the states' isolation from Midwest-produced feed.

"Turkeys are raised where the feed is," said Dalton Hobbs, an assistant director for the Oregon Department of Agriculture.

The isolation forced Northwest growers to pay top dollar for feed. With turkey prices set on a national scale, Hobbs said, growers were unable to recoup their costs.

Against that backdrop, at Thanksgiving in 1991 the USDA recalled 70,000 Oregon-raised turkeys in nine Western states because of a bad odor caused by decay.

"That was the final straw, and for all intents and purposes, the finale for Oregon's turkey industry," ODA spokesman Bruce Pokarney said.

The Oregon industry essentially collapsed within two years of the 1991 recall. The state's production dropped from 2.4 million birds in 1992 to 520,000 in 1993. Production dipped below 15,000 in 1994, though a precise number is not available.

The Deck Family Farm near Junction City, is typical of the Northwest turkey industry. The farm raises between 100 and 300 birds a year and sells pasture-raised broad-breasted white and heritage bronze turkeys at Thanksgiving and Christmas.

Even small-scale turkey producers face financial risks, Chris Deck said. Each year, she said, some of the leaner heritage turkeys the farm raises fly off with wild turkeys. Also, this summer, many of the 300 turkey chicks the farm had shipped from the South arrived dead.

Alan Rousseau, a turkey producer from Bend, said he lost about seven of the 100 birds he raised this year to predators.