The US Division of Agriculture (USDA) has unveiled a brand new plan to fight hen flu, the unfold of which has created a extreme egg scarcity and triggered egg costs to spike within the US.
The $1bn plan consists of monetary assist for poultry farmers in addition to funding for brand spanking new analysis for remedy and vaccines. Within the brief time period, the company goals to extend egg imports to satisfy demand.
“American farmers want reduction, and American shoppers want inexpensive meals,” wrote Trump’s Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins in a Wall Road Journal editorial. “To each household struggling to purchase eggs: We hear you, we’re combating for you and assistance is on the best way.”
However simply how dangerous is the egg disaster, what are the small print of Trump’s plan to ease costs and when might shoppers get reduction?
How a lot do eggs price within the US?
On common, about $4.95 for a dozen.
That’s an all-time excessive – almost double the value only one 12 months in the past, in accordance with the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
In some massive cities, costs are even increased, hitting $8 to $10 per dozen in Chicago, New York and San Francisco.
The worth hike has turned an on a regular basis breakfast staple into an indulgence for a lot of shoppers. Some standard breakfast chains, similar to Denny’s and Waffle Home, have taken to including surcharges for egg dishes. “A easy egg sandwich is sort of a luxurious,” one grocery shopper in Chicago, Jon Harris, informed the Reuters information company.
Why are costs so excessive?
The spike is basically because of the rise in H5N1 avian flu circumstances in US poultry farms. Since February 2022, the virus has swept by all 50 states and Puerto Rico, hitting greater than 1,600 flocks, in accordance with the USDA’s Animal and Plant Well being Inspection Service.
To forestall additional unfold, complete flocks are culled wherever viruses are detected. Greater than 160 million birds have been killed throughout the disaster, together with 30 million this 12 months, crippling business farms and inflicting main egg shortages.
“If there aren’t any birds to put eggs… then now we have a provide scarcity, and that results in increased costs due to provide and demand dynamics,” defined Jada Thompson, a poultry specialist on the College of Arkansas.
At first of this 12 months, the variety of egg-laying hens within the US stood at 304 million, an 11 % decline from 5 years in the past, in accordance with the USDA.
What measures did earlier President Joe Biden take?
Biden’s administration spent about $1.5bn combatting the unfold of H5N1 after it resurged in 2022. In doing so, it adopted longstanding US authorities coverage to stamp out affected poultry populations by culling.
The discount in variety of chickens triggered egg costs to steadily climb throughout Biden’s tenure – from $1.60 per dozen in February 2021 to $4.10 in December 2024. The worth has continued to rise since then, hitting $4.95 this week.
As well as, Biden allotted greater than $600m to cease the virus from spreading to people, together with by illness monitoring, remedy preparations and analysis on therapies, diagnostics and vaccine innovation.
What’s completely different about Trump’s plan?
Whereas Trump administration officers blamed Biden for inflicting the egg worth hike on account of culling insurance policies, the USDA has acknowledged it’ll proceed with the identical method.
“No anticipated adjustments to our present stamping-out coverage presently,” mentioned Rosemary Sifford, chief veterinary officer for the USDA’s Animal and Plant Well being Inspection Service, on Wednesday.
Nonetheless, the company has introduced a $1bn package deal of plans to sort out the egg scarcity from completely different angles.
In a press launch on Wednesday, the USDA mentioned it could spend $500m to spice up farms’ biosecurity protocols that shield poultry from catching H5N1 from wild birds, and $400m to reimburse farmers whose flocks have been culled. It additionally mentioned it could make investments $100m to develop new vaccines, remedies and options to guard chickens from hen flu and cut back the necessity to cull them, in addition to enhance surveillance throughout outbreaks.
As well as, the USDA says it’ll look into the right way to take away burdensome trade rules that drive up costs, together with for again yard poultry keepers, and briefly import extra eggs.
The place might the US get extra eggs from?
The US produces the overwhelming majority of the eggs it consumes. However with home costs at an all-time excessive, it’s now trying to import extra.
One nation that it’s turning to is Turkiye, which expects to ship 420 million eggs to the US this 12 months, six occasions greater than final 12 months, in accordance with the Turkish Egg Producers Central Union.
Nonetheless, this can be a small fraction of the US’s whole demand, equaling lower than a half % of the 109 billion eggs it produced within the 12 months main as much as November 2024, in accordance with figures from USDA.
The US authorities has not specified the opposite international locations it hopes to obtain extra eggs from, but it surely has traditionally acquired some imports from Canada, the Netherlands, the UK and China.
As of 2023, the Netherlands was the world’s greatest egg exporter, promoting greater than $1bn of eggs overseas, primarily to Germany, in accordance with the Observatory of Financial Complexity. Turkiye, with $441m in exports, ranked fifth. It despatched most of its egg exports to the Gulf.
What do trade specialists say?
Trump’s multipronged plan to handle the egg disaster has been acquired positively by trade commerce teams.
United Egg Producers, which represents corporations producing greater than 90 % of US eggs, thanked Trump for “stepping as much as take motion”.
“President Trump and USDA Secretary Brooke Rollins have demonstrated their dedication to working alongside America’s egg farmers in addressing the devastation of HPAI [avian influenza] on the US egg trade by driving assets and experience to the place they’re most wanted,” mentioned the group’s President Chad Gregory in a press release shared on X.
UEP thanks President Trump and Secretary Rollins for his or her dedication to combating the devastating results of extremely pathogenic avian influenza #HPAI on U.S. #EggFarmers with this historic $1 billion funding.
Learn our assertion on this necessary initiative. @USDA @SecRollins pic.twitter.com/HgB4TVSOLE
— United Egg Producers (UEP) (@UnitedEggProd) February 26, 2025
Nonetheless, some specialists are pushing for a faster rollout of vaccines for chickens, that are at the moment time-consuming to manage and threat unintentionally damaging the entire poultry market. That’s as a result of some international patrons don’t take poultry from international locations that vaccinate in opposition to H5N1, fearing the vaccine would possibly merely masks a proliferation of the virus.
“It positive appears to me that we’re going to have to start out utilizing vaccines if we wish to begin placing this hearth out,” mentioned Gregory Grey, a College of Texas Medical Department professor.
Will egg costs fall or proceed to rise?
The USDA initiatives egg costs will surge one other 41 % this 12 months.
Nonetheless, Rollins believes that inside a 12 months or two, costs will return to the $1.30 to $2 per dozen vary noticed throughout Trump’s first time period from 2017 to 2021.
In a information convention on February 24, she mentioned “the underside line for shoppers…is that we are going to repair it.
“We’ve received our work reduce out for us,” she acknowledged.
