US chicken prices to fall thanks to green fuel boom

Mike Weber watches an employee clean a hen house at his egg farm in Petaluma, Calif. on Thursday, Jan. 11, 2024. His company Sunrise Farms had to euthanize 550,000 chickens after avian flu was detected among the flock. A year after the bird flu led to record egg prices and widespread shortages, the disease known as highly pathogenic avian influenza is wreaking havoc in California, which escaped the earlier wave of outbreaks that that devastated poultry farms in the Midwest. (AP Photo/Terry Chea)

NEW YORK: After years of butcher-counter sticker shock, Americans are likely to see a drop in meat prices thanks to an unlikely ally: the emerging renewable-fuel industry.

Processing the vast amounts of soybeans needed to make the plant-based jet fuel and diesel required to lower US emissions will also create mountains of co-product soymeal, widely used in animal feed.