Most everyone has been hit by the high cost of eggs in the past year and the question has been…..when will something be done about the high prices?
This is the Trump Administration’s answer to solving the ever rising egg prices here in the US….
President Trump’s agriculture secretary announced Wednesday that her department is working with the Department of Government Efficiency “to cut hundreds of millions of dollars of wasteful spending” that will be used to help bring down the retail price of eggs. “We will repurpose some of those dollars by investing in long-term solutions to avian flu,” a major driver of the egg shortage, Brooke Rollins wrote in an opinion piece in the Wall Street Journal. In January, the average price for large, Grade A eggs in American cities hit a record $4.95 per dozen.
Agriculture Department will spend as much as $1 billion on the campaign, Rollins said in laying out the plan’s five steps. The first $500 million is allocated to help with biosecurity measures at poultry farms—steps to stop the flu’s spread. In addition, $400 million is set aside for relief to farmers whose flocks have been hit the flu, the Washington Post reports. Another $100 million will go toward developing vaccines and therapeutics for laying chickens. “This should help reduce the need to ‘depopulate’ flocks, which means killing chickens on a farm where there’s an outbreak,” Rollins wrote.
The fourth step, she said, is reducing the regulation of producers, including facilitating the raising of backyard chickens. The last move Rollins listed is temporarily increasing the number of imported eggs, possibly raising purchases from Turkey from the current 70 million a year to as many as 420 million this year, per the Post. A farmers group, United Egg Producers, welcomed Rollins’ plan. The secretary wrote that while the shortage won’t disappear overnight, “we’re confident that it will restore stability to the egg market.”
Just how will this bring down prices?
Trump is considering a 25% tariff on products from the EU so where will we import eggs from that is not effected by these tariffs?
To remind everyone tariffs are paid by the importer and passed onto the consumer in price increases….so again how will this idea bring down prices?
So just how will this lower the price for we will be dealing with the same middlemen that are raping huge profits on the backs of consumers
How can we as consumers be guaranteed that the eggs we import will be safe for they may come from countries with little to no oversight?
And another question why has bird flu hit the US the hardest?….I have not seen a report that it is crisis level elsewhere in the world.
Let me say here that while I do not like this proposal to end high egg prices it is a damn sight better than what the Dems have offered…..an investigation into egg producers….the investigation is needed but it will take a year or better to complete and what will happen to prices in that lag time?
Please share your thoughts on this hair brain idea.
I Read, I Write, You Know
“lego ergo scribo”
As usual, you ask some very good questions. I hope someone supplies the answers you need.
Thanx me too and everyone should be asking these questions….chuq
Importing eggs from Turkey? Okay, it’s not in the EU, so no tariffs, but it takes 15-20 days to sail a cargo ship to the US from Turkey, so I am presuming the eggs will have to come by air or not be remotely fresh, which must surely be expensive. It’s not adding up to me, chuq.
Best wishes, Pete.
Me either and there is the safety issue . chuq
I don’t know the answer but I’m asking the same question about why this seems to be a US problem. I follow blogs and other countries don’t have this problem. I haven’t been to a grocery store in about a month. Story for a different day. The last time I did, cheap eggs were 9.99 a dozen (gotta psychologically price them under 10.00). The time before that, the store was out. Something is fishy and not the caviar fish egg variety. I find a way around it because my company seems to have eggs. I now have to ask the question from which country did those eggs originate? Thank you for your post. I hope you and Sue are doing OK
Things are so far so good with us….here the cheapest eggs are about $5….chuq
Considering this administration is in the process of gutting the FDA, USDA, the CDC and the other government agencies that would have been dealing with this, exactly how are they going to implement any of this? They’re in the process of firing all of the people who would have helped deal with this.
Importing eggs from Turkey? Seriously? That must be some kind of joke, right? The cost would be astronomical!
Increasing backyard flocks? That’s only going to help spread the virus even more. Most of these cases are caused by birds coming into contact with the feces of wild birds, migrating birds, etc. Having chickens running around in people’s backyards is just providing the virus with another vector for transmission.
Typical Trump ideas…they suck. chuq
No. 1—“How can we as consumers be guaranteed that the eggs we import will be safe for they may come from countries with little to no oversight?—-RFK WILL MAKE SURE THEY ARE SAFE BY DENYING EVERYTHING ABOUT ALL OF THEM….
RFK Jr has the bird flu thing well in hand…he will say it is not unusual, that we have seen it before and there is nothing to worry about so no vaccines will be produced and many will die and the maga train will go on and on….
There will be no investigations into anything unless the investigators are maga and maga investigators will always conclude that whatever is happening is happening for the good of the nation.
My #1 question is why is there not more Bird flu elsewhere….if there is we do not hear about it….and will those countries be sending us eggs? chuq
Your question about why there doesn’t seem to be more bird flu elsewhere—and whether we’re just not hearing about it—is a good one. Let’s break it down based on what’s known as of February 28, 2025.
Bird flu, specifically the H5N1 strain driving the current outbreaks, is indeed a global issue. Since 2020, this highly pathogenic avian influenza has been reported on every continent except Australia, according to various sources tracking its spread. It’s carried by wild migratory birds, like waterfowl, which act as natural reservoirs and spread it across borders. Outbreaks have hit poultry and wild birds in places like Europe, Asia, Africa, and even Antarctica, where it was first detected in late 2023. Human cases, though rare, have popped up in countries like China, Cambodia, and India—often linked to direct contact with infected birds. So, it’s not that bird flu isn’t elsewhere; it’s that the scale, impact, and reporting vary widely.
Why don’t we hear as much about it in some places? A few reasons could explain this. In the U.S., the outbreak has been massive—over 162 million poultry affected since 2022, with a surge in late 2024 and early 2025 driving egg shortages and prices to record highs. This gets a lot of attention because it disrupts a huge, centralized egg industry and hits consumers directly. Other countries might not have the same level of industrial poultry farming—think hundreds of thousands of birds crammed into one facility—so their outbreaks might be smaller or less economically disruptive. Posts on X have speculated along these lines, suggesting that the U.S.’s large-scale operations amplify the problem compared to, say, Mexico or smaller producers elsewhere. Reporting also depends on local priorities and transparency. Some nations, like China, vaccinate poultry against bird flu, which might reduce visible outbreaks, while others might not publicize every incident unless it escalates.
As for egg imports, the U.S. is already turning to other countries to ease the shortage. Turkey is a big player here—exporting 15,000 tons of eggs (about 420 million eggs) to the U.S. by mid-2025, according to recent announcements. This started in February 2025 as a response to the H5N1 crisis wiping out millions of laying hens. Other countries could step up too, but it depends on their own bird flu status and trade rules. Mexico, for instance, hasn’t reported major outbreaks recently, and some X posts claim it’s free of the issue, though official data is spotty. The U.S. has strict safety standards for imports, so any country sending eggs would need to prove their flocks are clean—or at least that the eggs are processed to kill the virus. The USDA’s $1 billion plan, announced this week, includes boosting imports alongside biosecurity upgrades, so more nations might get involved if domestic supply keeps tanking.
The catch? Bird flu’s global presence means no country is fully immune. Even if a place like Mexico or parts of Europe isn’t screaming about outbreaks now, migratory birds could change that fast. Plus, the virus keeps mutating—new strains like D1.1 just showed up in U.S. dairy cows—so what’s quiet today might not be tomorrow. We hear less from some areas, but that doesn’t mean they’re unaffected; it might just mean their systems or scale don’t make it headline news. Keep an eye on trade updates—those egg-exporting countries will likely be the ones we hear from next.
If it is that entrenched then report it….chuq
and you think somebody is going to listen?
Don’t fret it…..I will keep yelling as much as my old voice will handle….it is better than throwing my hands up and admitting defeat…..chuq