Bill Roenigk, senior vice president and chief economist for the National Chicken Council

Profitability, historically, has been a powerful incentive driving chicken production upward and onward.

Record-high feed costs during the second half of 2012 and undoubtedly at least for the first half of 2013 make any predictions about the chicken business in the new year more difficult and precarious than usual.

For only the fourth time in five decades, chicken production in 2012 will decline when compared with the previous year.

Looking back over 2009, it was a year that had many interesting developments in terms of adjusting production to a new level of domestic consumer demand, dealing with potential and