Tyson Foods (NYSE: TSN) really improved its fortunes in Q3. Last year at this time, Tyson earned 3 cents per share. This year, the food company, famous for its chicken brand, made 35 cents per share. Sales actually dipped a little under 3%, but management is diligently fighting the good fight when it comes to efficiencies. Both costs of sales and selling, general and administrative expenses went down.

According to Bloomberg, the adjusted income of 33 cents per share simply blazed past Wall Street's expectations. The call was for 22 cents per share. You've got to like that. Higher prices for poultry helped the quarter.

Why is chicken causing a furor between the US and China? It seems that there is a long standing feud over chicken imports to the US. According to Etter and Power, in 2006 the USDA issued a rule that permitted China to export cooked poultry products to the US as long as the raw poultry meat originated in the US. A bruhaha erupted, and lawmakers inserted a provision in the fiscal 2008 spending bill that prohibited processed chicken from being imported into the US.

Now, in retaliation, China is expected to ban imports of US chicken, a move that would cost US chicken exporters $370 million dollars over the next six months.

Rising commodities prices led both Smithfield Foods Inc. (NYSE: SFD), the nation's largest pork producer and processor, and poultry producer Sanderson Farms Inc. (NASDAQ: SAFM) to report quarterly losses on Tuesday.

Smithfield Foods said it lost $12.6 million, or 9 cents per share, in its fiscal first quarter due in part to a $20.1 million write-down in the value of commodity contracts. The Smithfield, Va.-based company had reported a profit of $54.6 million, or 41 cents per share, a year ago.

Revenues rose 20% to $3.14 billion in the quarter. Analysts surveyed by Thomson Reuters had forecast a loss of 4 cents per share on $2.87 billion in sales.

In addition to hurting from high costs for such ingredients as grain and fuel, Smithfield also faces an oversupply of meat on the market, which is keeping prices for pork lower. To help push prices up, meat producers such as Smithfield have announced intentions to cut supply.

Shares of Smithfield fell 88 cents, or 3.7%, to $22.71 in morning trading. That's up from a 52-week low of $16.61 in early July, but shares have fallen about 21% since the beginning of the year.