Egg prices are soaring and forecast to go higher

By Sean Ellis

Idaho Farm Bureau Federation

POCATELLO – The bad news is that retail egg prices in the U.S. have hit a record level.

The worse news is that USDA forecasts they could increase by another 40 percent in 2025.

The good news is that USDA has released a comprehensive plan to try to reign in soaring egg prices.

The average price in the U.S. for a dozen eggs at the retail level was under $1.50 in January 2021. This January, the average price was a tad under $5.

According to USDA’s Food Price Outlook for 2025, which was updated Feb. 25, “Retail egg prices continue to experience volatile month-to-month changes ... Egg prices in January 2025 were 53 percent higher than in January 2024 and surpassed the previous peak prices in January 2023.”

That same report adds: “Egg prices are predicted to increase 41 percent in 2025….”

The main reason for high egg prices is linked to bird flu, which has resulted in well over 160 million egg-laying hens in the U.S. being culled since the outbreak began in late 2021.

This has resulted in a classic supply and demand imbalance and the result is higher egg prices.

On Feb. 26, USDA Secretary Brooke Rollins, in an article that appeared in the Wall Street Journal, announced a “comprehensive strategy to combat avian influenza” in an attempt to reign in skyrocketing egg prices.

Record high egg prices “matters for American families because eggs are a healthy, accessible and generally affordable source of protein,” the ag secretary wrote in introducing her plan.

In some cases, Americans are seeing retail egg prices between $6-10 a dozen, even more, she wrote.

“This is due in part to continuing outbreaks of highly pathogenic avian influenza, which has devastated American poultry farmers and slashed the egg supply over the past two years,” Rollins stated.

USDA’s plan involves a “five-pronged strategy.”

She said the USDA will invest up to $1 billion “to curb this crisis and make eggs affordable again.”

That includes $500 million to help U.S. poultry producers implement what USDA calls “gold-standard biosecurity measures.”

“USDA has developed a successful pilot program, called Wildlife Biosecurity Assessments, to identify and implement … safety measures,” Rollins said.

She noted that between January 2023 and January 2025, about 150 sites have undergone assessments, and producers have addressed the risks that USDA inspectors identified.

Only one of those sites has since been affected by avian flu, according to USDA.

“USDA will now provide this consulting service at no cost to all commercial egg-laying chicken farms,” Rollins said, and USDA will pay up to 75 percent of the cost to repair biosecurity vulnerabilities.

USDA will also make up to $400 million of increased financial relief available to farmers whose flocks are affected by avian flu.

Rollins said USDA is “exploring the use of 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,” she said.

The ag department secretary said the U.S. will also “remove unnecessary regulatory burdens on egg producers where possible.”

Rollins said the U.S. will consider allowing the temporary import of eggs to reduce egg costs in the short term.

“This … strategy won’t erase the problem overnight, but we’re confident that it will restore stability to the egg market over the next three to six months,” Rollins said. “This approach will also ensure stability over the next four years and beyond.”

“To every family struggling to buy eggs: We hear you, we’re fighting for you, and help is on the way,” Rollins stated.

As part of USDA’s plan, Rollins said the department also wants to “make it easier for American families to raise backyard chickens.”

A proposed bill that would have paved the way for more Idahoans to do just that failed to pass muster in the Idaho Legislature.

Senate Bill 1026 would have prevented Homeowners Associations from restricting the ability of homeowners to have chickens on their property. It would have allowed residential property owners in HOAs to keep up to four chickens per 0.2 acres.

It passed the Idaho Senate by a vote of 28-6 but is stalled in the House after members of the House Agricultural Affairs Committee voted 8-7 on Feb. 26 to hold it in committee.

This results in the bill dying, unless members of the House committee vote to revive it.

Members of the committee voted against the bill after hearing unanimous public testimony in opposition to it.

The main point of opposition to the bill was: If homeowners voluntarily enter into an agreement with an HOA that restricts chicken ownership, why should lawmakers step in and undo that?

Commenting on USDA’s strategy, American Farm Bureau Federation President Zippy Duvall released a statement saying that “We appreciate USDA’s blueprint for tackling avian influenza. America’s farmers are committed to ensuring a safe and abundant food supply, and these investments to advance biosecurity and research will further equip them to combat the threat of (avian flu).”

“Farm Bureau looks forward to working with Secretary Rollins and the expert team at USDA to bring (avian flu) under control while ensuring solutions are safe, effective and practical,” Duvall stated.

As a result of egg prices increasing significantly, eggs have suddenly become one of Idaho’s top agricultural commodities in terms of farm-gate revenue, which is what the farmer or rancher receives for their commodity.

From 2016 to 2021 in Idaho, the chicken egg category brought in between $30-50 million per year in farm-gate receipts, making eggs a “medium” ag commodity in Idaho those years in terms of total farm-gate revenue.

In 2022, when the cost of retail eggs started exploding, that number jumped to $125 million and it was $120 million in 2023.

University of Idaho economists estimate that eggs brought in about $166 million in farm-gate revenue in 2024.

That means eggs could rank as high as No. 8 in Idaho among ag commodities behind the state’s traditional stalwart ag sectors such as milk, cattle, potatoes, wheat, hay, sugar beets and barley.