This year, the turkey industry hopes fall will be a season in which it finally begins to shake the after-effects of market disruption that dates back to the 2015 highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) outbreak. Devastating to the producers and processors affected, the HPAI had an impact that reached far beyond the roughly 3 percent of anticipated 2015 production lost to the disease.
Prices in some markets soared during the latter half of the year in anticipation of shortages that never fully materialized. More damaging is the fact that many export markets were closed by the outbreak for significant portions of the year and some key markets, most notably China, still had not reopened as of mid-September. Exports still have not returned to their pre-HPAI levels. That, combined with greater supplies of other proteins, has had a negative pull on the turkey markets for at least a year now.