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# GRAPHIC: Chicken farms are getting bigger and bigger — and fewer and fewer
- URL: https://www.investigatemidwest.org/graphic-chicken-farms-are-getting-bigger-and-bigger-and-fewer-and-fewer/
- Published: 2024-07-31T11:00:00.000Z
- Updated: 2024-07-31T11:00:00.000Z
- Description: As inventory of the widely-popular meat expands, the number of farms taking on debt and risk shrinks.
- Author: John McCracken, Investigate Midwest
- Tags: Agribusiness, Data Harvest, chicken, TP::Explainer, Poultry, #wp, #wp-post, #Import 2026-06-18 04:56

The number of farms contracted to raise chickens for slaughter dropped by a third from 2002 to 2022\. At that same time, the number of chickens raised on these farms grew 6%.

There were more than 20,000 farms in the country that raised broiler chickens, or chickens raised for meat processing, in 2002\. Twenty years later, that number declined 32%, according to U.S. Department of Agriculture census data.

Nearly every chicken in the country is raised under a production contract, where major meat processors own the birds and the feed, while farmers are tasked with caring for the animals — and [taking on debt to operate the farm](https://www.investigatemidwest.org/early-morning-calls-barren-chicken-barns-millions-in-debt/).

In the last 20 years, the nation routinely produced more than 8 billion chickens raised under contract, fluctuating little in that time period.

The U.S. is the largest producer of broiler chickens, with Americans eating more chicken than any other country.