U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) Secretary Brooke Rollins unveiled on Wednesday her agency’s “five-pronged strategy” to bring down the cost of eggs – a plan that prioritizes “gold-standard biosecurity measures” to ensure chickens have a better chance of being protected from bird flu.
In both an op-ed at the Wall Street Journal and a press release at the USDA website, Rollins and her office announced the Trump administration will invest up to $1 billion to address repeated outbreaks of Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza (HPAI) and the surge in egg prices that has followed the outbreaks.
“We are working with the Department of Government Efficiency [DOGE] to cut hundreds of millions of dollars of wasteful spending,” she wrote. “We will repurpose some of those dollars by investing in long-term solutions to avian flu, which has resulted in about 166 million laying hens being culled since 2022.”
“There’s no silver bullet to eradicating avian flu,” the secretary stated, but revealed her five-step plan to address the shortage of chickens and, hence, the shortage of eggs:
Rollins explained she visited a Texas farm “where I saw stringent measures to prevent any contamination,” including a protocol whereby “vehicles are hosed down before entering the property; workers must wear protective gear and shower before entering and on leaving.”
It was important to me to see firsthand an egg laying farm facility implementing strong biosecurity measures. We have a lot of work to do as we combat avian flu, help our poultry industry recover, and bring the price of eggs down for all Americans. More coming mid-week on this.… pic.twitter.com/rB699lGYoM
— Secretary Brooke Rollins (@SecRollins) February 24, 2025
Thank you East Texas! I am so grateful to so many as the learning tour continues — yesterday a poultry facility and a roundtable with #local farmers and ranchers to solicit feedback on combatting bird flu and lowering the cost of eggs. @POTUS and our team at @USDA remain… pic.twitter.com/ATXTEz0tVk
— Secretary Brooke Rollins (@SecRollins) February 25, 2025
“Yet avian flu can still penetrate such a facility,” the secretary noted. “[I]t is transmitted through wild birds that often enter through perimeter gaps that need to be fixed.”
Rollins cited the USDA’s “successful pilot program, called Wildlife Biosecurity Assessments, to identify and implement more safety measures,” whereby producers are addressing biosecurity risks targeted by the nation’s top agricultural agency.
“USDA will now provide this consulting service at no cost to all commercial egg-laying chicken farms,” she announced. “We will also pay up to 75% of the cost to repair biosecurity vulnerabilities.”
The USDA press statement noted as well that “[n]ew programs are being explored to aid farmers to accelerate the rate of repopulation.”
“[V]accines aren’t a stand-alone solution,” Rollins wrote in her op-ed, but added their use “should help reduce the need to ‘depopulate’ flocks, which means killing chickens on a farm where there’s an outbreak.”
The secretary said the USDA “hasn’t yet authorized the use of a vaccine,” but, prior to doing so, will “consult state leaders, poultry and dairy farmers, and public-health professionals.”
Additionally, she observed the trade issues involved in injecting chickens with vaccines, stating the USDA will “work with our trading partners to minimize potential negative trade effects for U.S. producers and to assess public-health concerns.”
This strategy, Rollins observed, will “include examining the best way to protect farmers from overly prescriptive state laws, such as California’s Proposition 12, which established minimum space requirements for egg-laying hens, increasing production costs and contributing to the Golden State’s average price of $9.68 a dozen.”
Additionally, the secretary said she would like to see regulatory burdens eased for “families to raise backyard chickens.”
“We will proceed with imports only if the eggs meet stringent U.S. safety standards and if we determine that doing so won’t jeopardize American farmers’ access to markets in the future,” Rollins asserted.
New: The US is in talks with 3-4 (unspecified) countries to buy 70-100 million eggs, as part of a plan to address the shortage and avian flu outbreak, Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins says. USDA will also offer farmers help to secure barns to prevent infection, she says. pic.twitter.com/L0lNx7X2VF
— Josh Wingrove (@josh_wingrove) February 26, 2025
While the secretary acknowledged the five-pronged strategy “won’t erase” the high cost of eggs immediately, “we’re confident that it will restore stability to the egg market over the next three to six months.”