The recession has affected a topic near and dear to most of us this week: turkey production. Wholesale turkey prices are down as much as 20 percent due to an oversupply of the big birds, leading to some really great deals at the grocery store. Turkey farmers have also had to deal with higher feed prices - feeding the bird accounts for 70 percent of the cost of raising it. Turkey production is down by roughly 9 percent this year, but that's not been enough to compensate for the decline in consumption.
But it's still a staggering amount of meat. The projection for the fourth quarter of 2009 is that we will produce 1.48 billion pounds of turkey in this country. Fully one-fifth of all the turkey we fix each year is for Thanksgiving.
Overall, the average cost to feed a gathering of ten this year is $42.91, down $1.70 from last year, according to the American Farm Bureau Federation. Just don't skimp on the cranberries: Although poor weather in cranberry-producing states like Massachusetts and Wisconsin has depressed their crop, New Jersey's cranberry production is up 5 percent this year. So those tart red berries on your turkey could very likely be helping our economy.
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