Chicken War of 1962–1963

The Chicken War of 1962–1963 was a trade dispute between poultry producers in Arkansas and other states and the European Economic Community (EEC).

In the late 1950s, Arkansas poultry producers began to market U.S. chicken in western Europe. In collaboration with the U.S. Department of Agriculture, M. H. “Bill” Simmons of Plus Poultry in Siloam Springs (Benton County) and other business leaders helped post–World War II Europeans develop their own poultry industry.

Noting that Arkansas’s Benton County produced more chicken than some European nations, Simmons assumed it would be decades before European producers could compete with their American mentors. “There is a considerable movement of poultry from Northwest Arkansas into the export channels almost weekly,” Simmons wrote to U.S. Senator J. William Fulbright in 1960, adding that Plus Poultry was nearly to the point of shipping four train carloads of frozen chicken to Europe: “I feel that it will be a matter of a very short time before everyone in our industry in Northwest Arkansas as well as those in related industries realize the great value of this export business.”

Lloyd Peterson—another poultry industry leader, based in Decatur (Benton County)—also invested in Europe. By 1958, Peterson’s chicken-breeding operation was shipping white male cockerels to Holland, France, Spain, Italy, Belgium, and Greece, and he established a distribution headquarters at Le Foeil, France.

In 1962, the European Economic Community, comprising six nations, unexpectedly instituted trade duties of thirteen cents per pound on chicken imports. The effect was dramatic. Plus Poultry’s exports to Europe in 1963 were only a third of what they had been the year before. In addition to protecting western Europe’s own poultry industry, officials there alleged that U.S. chicken was diseased, which Senator Fulbright deemed “propaganda.”

Fulbright’s voice was among the strongest calling for either the duties’ reduction or U.S. trade retaliation. In a letter to poultry producer Don Tyson in Springdale (Washington and Benton counties), Fulbright said that the U.S. government was doing everything it could in response to the problem “except send a battleship up the Rhine River.” In November 1962, Time magazine reported that at a meeting in Geneva, Switzerland, “Fulbright from chicken-fat Arkansas interrupted a debate over nuclear weapons…to protest Continental hostility to U.S. chickens.” Elsewhere, Fulbright said that the EEC’s refusal to reduce barriers on U.S. poultry could lead to the reduction of American military forces in West Germany.

Of Arkansas poultry producers, the most active on the trade issue was Bill Simmons who, in addition to presiding over Plus Poultry and related businesses, was chairman of the board of the Institute of American Poultry Industries. His activity in relation to the Chicken War was featured in the August 23, 1963, edition of Life magazine.

In letters to Senator Fulbright, in articles, and at speaking events, Simmons argued that the EEC duties presented “one of the biggest problems ever faced by the poultry industry.” In Arkansas Poultry News, Simmons noted that in each week in the last six months of 1962 Arkansas processors had shipped “the equivalent of 50 semi-truck loads of ice packed fryers” to western Europe. But since the barriers had gone into effect, almost all of this chicken was being “crammed into our domestic markets,” and prices were falling. “At even a cent a pound,” Simmons wrote, “our loss in Arkansas would be almost $8 million a year!” Simmons said that poultry exporters did not seek special favors, but only “the right of access to markets we helped develop.”

In the end, Simmons and Fulbright’s efforts were not successful. While the administration of President Lyndon Johnson did impose some tariffs on European goods in retaliation, this did nothing to recover the exports lost by Arkansas and other states. In an editorial titled “Fulbright’s Chickens,” the Washington Post expressed “due respect” to the senator’s “poultry raising constituents,” but argued that it was “difficult to become exercised over the chicken issue” since, in its view, western Europe’s increased efficiency guaranteed that U.S. poultry exports would inevitably decline regardless of barriers.

For additional information:
Doran, Bill. “Export Problems Aired for IAPI.” Poultry & Eggs Weekly, February 17, 1962, p. 2.

“Fulbright Hints Cut in Europe GIs.” Atlanta Constitution, August 12, 1963, p. 13.

“Fulbright’s Chickens.” Washington Post, June 21, 1963.

J. William Fulbright Papers. Special Collections. University of Arkansas Libraries, Fayetteville, Arkansas. Finding aid online at https://libraries.uark.edu/specialcollections/fulbright/ (accessed February 29, 2024).

Jones, Preston. Uncommon Common Man: M. H. “Bill” Simmons & the Development of the Poultry Industry in Northwest Arkansas, 1949–1974. Pittsburgh, PA: Dorrance Publishing, 2024.

“Peterson Farm Completes 3-Year Growth Program.” Poultry & Eggs Weekly, February 3, 1962, p. 44.

“Nobody but Their Chickens.” Time (November 30, 1962): 90.

Simmons, Bill. “European Politics Affect Poultry Prices.” Arkansas Poultry News, June 26, 1963, p. 7.

Preston Jones
John Brown University