The us department of agriculture is reporting a 4% drop in chicken production. And at the same time, there's been an increase in demand. Add staffing shortages onto that. And you're facing a price hike that puts chicken at more than $3 a pound. So with this rise in prices, we wanted to check in with a local farmer to see how all of this is affecting their chicken production. Our Lauren Moss is at circle C farms with the owner, Nicole Cruz. Lauren, tell us a little bit about where you are right now. 

Well, guys, one thing I have to say is look at all those chickens. I'm here at circle C farms in Hendry county, and we're talking about those increased chicken prices. I'm here with Nicole Cruz, the owner of this farm, Nicole, with those rising chicken prices. Why is it important to shop locally right now?

 They're well, the critical components of shopping local is that, you know, your farmer and it reduces the carbon footprint. And it reduces the time between actually where the chicken is harvested and the opportunity for you to eat it. So when you're shopping local, you're supporting local farmers, but you're also eating within your food shed. So it's critical for the, um, the supply chain component to reducing that and getting everything from somebody that you know is produced at the way you want to eat it. 

So what do you think is affecting those chicken prices right now? What is making them go up? Well, it's really a combination of things. We have supply, um, materials, vendor increases in pricing. You've got diesel and gas prices that are increasing feed is also increasing. You know, so depending upon how or where you're sourcing your food, you're going to have various prices that are going to increase just because everything unfortunately is going up.

 And you were telling me something unique about your supply chain. What is your supply chain look like?

 Well, we have a very short supply chain. Uh, we work with a wonderful hatchery and we get the baby chicks a day old, and then they are here on the farm for several weeks. And so we're ready to harvest. So that's our supply chain, but we actually do everything here on farm. We raise our livestock, we harvest our livestock and our USDA inspected facility and we butcher package label. And then we also sell in our local farms store directly to consumer and we ship around the country. So, there's really no supply chain issues for us because we control it all.