The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention launched a well being alert in the beginning of April informing the general public {that a} Texas farm employee tested positive for extremely pathogenic avian influenza, or HPAI.
Just earlier than the announcement, Cal-Maine Foods, the biggest producer of recent shell eggs within the nation, introduced that chickens at certainly one of its services in Texas examined constructive for HPAI, leading it to cull 1.6 million laying hens and 337,000 young hens, amounting to three.6% of its complete flock.
The firm mentioned it’s “working to secure production from other facilities to minimize disruption to its customers.” Meanwhile, the virus has been found in Texas dairy herds.
If outbreaks proceed, we could rapidly see egg costs rise, mentioned Lee Schulz, an affiliate professor of economics at Iowa State University. But he mentioned retailers can draw from an present egg provide, which can mitigate potential value will increase within the brief run.
“Typically, 86-87.5% of the eggs produced within a month are consumed, and 12.5-14% of the eggs are hatched to add birds to the flock,” Schulz defined over electronic mail. “For a short period of time, the industry could maintain supplies to consumers by retaining fewer eggs.”
In January 2023, the worth of a dozen grade A eggs peaked at more than $4.80 after the hen flu contaminated tens of thousands and thousands of hens, information from the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ shopper value index exhibits. That’s greater than twice the quantity they cost throughout the identical interval the earlier yr.
Higher inflationary prices like labor, transportation and power may additionally affect costs, which is why it might be troublesome to “parse out the impact” of HPAI on egg costs, Schulz added.
That is strictly what economists on the University of Arkansas tried to do. In a 2023 paper, the economists untangled different components which will have pushed up egg costs through the 2022 outbreak, like inflation. They discovered the avian flu resulted in a 7.2% to 9.2% increase in retail egg costs between February 2022 and June 2023.
“This is not our first rodeo with the bird flu,” mentioned Trey Malone, one of many paper’s co-authors and an assistant professor of agricultural economics on the college. “It seems to be an increasingly recurrent event.”
The Arkansas economists used egg value information from the Agriculture Department’s advertising and marketing arm, which included a breakdown of regional costs. Among the economists’ different findings: The 2022 outbreak prompted U.S. customers to spend between $930 million and almost $1.2 billion greater than they’d have if the hen flu had not been current.
But if the typical flock dimension turns into bigger, it might be troublesome to extrapolate that information for future outbreaks, the paper famous.
As for dairy costs, Schulz of Iowa State University mentioned the avian flu hasn’t had an impact on milk provide or costs.
“The U.S. typically has sufficient milk supply in the spring months, just due to seasonally higher production,” Schulz mentioned.
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