February 26, 2025
Egg prices are astronomical right now. You don’t need me to tell you that. But now the trump administration has outlined a five part plan to get those prices down.
How?
Well – the new Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins wrote this op-ed in the Wall Street Journal today titled my plan to lower egg prices.
Of course a big problem causing the price of eggs to skyrocket is the serious problem of avian flu or bird flu. So Secretary Rollins says the Agriculture Department will invest $1 billion to “curb this crisis and make eggs affordable again.” She acknowledges “her five-point strategy won’t erase the problem overnight” instead she expects it’ll take between three to six months to “restore stability” in egg prices.
So what’s included in this five-step strategy?
Number one — she says $500 million will go to us poultry producers to implement gold-standard biosecurity measures. This investment will help egg production farmers prevent contamination of the avian flu in their flocks. The agriculture department will sent out USDA inspectors at no cost to consult with those who own those farcicalities and will pay up to 75% of the cost to repair their biosecurity vulnerabilities.
Number two – she says $400 million of “financial relief” will be made available to farmers whose flocks are affected by the avian flu.
Number three – she says $100 million will be spent on research and development to improve the efficacy and efficiency of vaccines and therapeutics for laying chickens to prevent avian flu infection in the first place.
Number four – she says the Trump administration will help lower the price you pay for eggs at the store by removing what she calls “unnecessary regulatory burdens” that are placed on egg producers. This includes examining existing state laws like Prop 12 in California which does several things. Including establishing minimum space for each egg-laying hen. That minimum requirement in California is 144 square inches of usable floor space per hen. That’s one-square foot. About this big. The Trump administration says giving egg-laying hens this amount of space increases production costs and may need to be eliminated because they say it’s contributing too much the cost you pay for eggs.
And number five – she says the Trump administration will start considering importing eggs from other countries in the short term.
Secretary Rollins says her department is working with Elon Musk’s doge team to cut hundreds of millions of dollars of what she calls “wasteful spending”. She says those savings will be repurposed to accomplish this five point strategy.
Read the Ag Secretary’s op-ed here.
