“It’s worth mentioning that we’ve had higher prices than this in the past, but it is clear that feed costs are higher,” Anderson said. “Then it is a matter of those higher production costs being passed on to consumers.”
Egg Prices And Beyond
Beyond the typical holiday demand and price spike, said AgriLife Extension poultry specialist Greg Archer, higher prices for feed components like soybeans and corn could keep prices up.
Another threat to long-term egg prices could be the ongoing spread of a highly pathogenic avian flu that has been found in more than a dozen states from Maryland to South Dakota.
Outbreak reports have mostly occurred in backyard flocks, according to the USDA, but almost 12 million commercial chickens and turkeys, including more than 1 million laying hens, have been destroyed to control the spread. Outbreaks have been reported in two major egg-producing states – Iowa and Minnesota. There are more than 300 million egg-producing hens in the U.S. poultry flock.
In 2015, egg-laying operations were devastated by major outbreaks of avian influenza. Around 50 million chickens and turkeys were culled from the nation’s flocks as a preventive measure to halt the disease’s spread. The outbreak impacted more than 10% of the nation’s egg production capacity and caused egg prices to double.
“There is concern among Texas producers, but hopefully, we can avoid major outbreaks here,” he said.
Anderson said higher production costs and subsequent higher retail prices for consumers would only be exacerbated by major outbreaks in egg-production operations. The highly pathogenic avian influenza outbreaks have implications for all forms of poultry production, including broiler chickens that provide meat and turkeys.
“In the short term, the trend is upward, and the price of production is higher, so we can expect higher prices. But if the outbreaks become a major problem, we could see prices really climb,” he said. “The last time this happened, it did worsen through the spring before it got better, so this could impact us beyond eggs and cause issues with turkeys this coming fall.”
Source : tamu.edu