Farm group has a surprising alternative reason for…

Farm group has a surprising alternative reason for surging egg prices

Eggs have been a staple of the American breakfast for centuries.

The protein-packed food is so ingrained in our diet that its affordability became one of the biggest sticking points of the 2024 election.

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President Donald Trump won the presidency partly because Americans believed he had a better chance to reduce the inflation that had caused the cost of breakfast to skyrocket for millions of Americans.

So far, the battle over eggs has been a losing effort for the Trump administration, which seems focused on myriad issues unrelated to food prices.

Egg prices in January increased 13.8% from January 2023, after they rose 8.4% year over year in December, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

The average price of a dozen Grade A large eggs has more than tripled (up 237%) to $4.95 in January from $1.47 in January 2021. Many families are paying $8 or more for their cartons.

Even more concerning, the U.S. predicts prices will group at above-average rates for not only eggs but also for sugar and sweets, nonalcoholic beverages and fresh fruits.

But while many are blaming an outbreak of avian flu for the prices, there may be a more surprising reason egg prices are rising.

Egg prices have skyrocketed during a bird-flu outbreak. A farmers advocate takes issue with the idea that the outbreak is the reason for the high prices.
Shutterstock-Andriiii

Farmers say profit is behind rise in egg prices

While the USDA predicts a 40% rise in egg prices this year, the agency this week also said it would spend another $1 billion battling bird flu. That's on top of the $2 billion it has spent battling the outbreak since 2022.

But according to one farmers' advocacy group, the authorities are missing a key point about the situation.

"While avian flu has been cited as the primary driver of skyrocketing egg prices, its actual impact on production has been minimal," Farm Action, a farmer-led advocacy organization, said this month in a letter to the Federal Trade Commission.

The group says that while the flu outbreaks have forced farmers to cull about 115 million egg-laying chickens, the effect of that loss has been minimal in terms of production.

Egg production has dropped just 4.3%, to 7.75 billion monthly in December 2024 from 8.1 billion per month in 2021, the group says. Even with this decline, the group says, U.S. output has not dipped below per-capita consumption.

At the same time, the value of egg production has jumped from $8.8 billion in 2021 to $19.4 billion in 2022 and $17.9 billion in 2023.

So if it's not the flu, what's causing the increase? According to Farm Action, the answer is greed.

Group: Producers are to blame for high egg prices

This battle isn't new to Farm Action, which says it sent letters to the Biden administration urging it to take action to curb prices, to no avail. The group is hoping for better luck with the Trump administration.

"Dominant egg producers — particularly Cal-Maine Foods — have leveraged the crisis to raise prices, amass record profits, and consolidate market power," this week's letter said. "The slow recovery in flock size, despite historically high prices, further suggests coordinated efforts to restrict supply and sustain inflated prices."

Cal-Maine (CALM) , Ridgeland, Miss., is the country's largest producer of fresh shell eggs, providing about a fifth of the nation's supply. The company's stock is down nearly 14% year to date and has risen nearly 53% over the past year.

A spokeswoman for the company couldn't immediately be reached for comment.

To be sure, not everyone is convinced that boosting profit is the reason Americans feel pain when they buy a fresh carton.

“This isn’t a case where they’re taking the price up to gouge the market. It is the price going up through auction at wholesale. And they’re benefiting from higher prices because supplies are tight,” a University of Arkansas agricultural economist, Jada Thompson, told the Associated Press.

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