Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins laid out a five-point plan on Wednesday to “immediately” bring down the cost of eggs, which have skyrocketed amid ongoing outbreaks of the avian flu.
Since January 2021, the average price of a dozen eggs has gone up 237 percent as supplies have dwindled due to the mass culling of laying hens.
In a Wall Street Journal op-ed, Rollins said USDA will devote up to $500 million to help poultry producers implement biosecurity measures.
USDA has developed a successful pilot program, called Wildlife Biosecurity Assessments, to identify and implement more safety measures. Between January 2023 and January 2025, about 150 sites have undergone assessments, and producers have addressed the risks that USDA inspectors identified. Only one of these sites has subsequently been affected by avian flu. USDA will now provide this consulting service at no cost to all commercial egg-laying chicken farms. We will also pay up to 75% of the cost to repair biosecurity vulnerabilities. (WSJ)
Secondly, up to $400 million will go toward providing financial relief to farmers whose flocks have been hit by the avian flu, assisting them in restarting operations as quickly and safely possible.
Third, USDA is committed to spending up to $100 million for research and development on vaccines and therapeutics for hens. […]
— Read More: townhall.com
(((financial relief to farmers)))
The same farmers who sold their land to the Chinese and Bill Gates?
ruf kidding?
Sorry, but this is a stupid waste of time and money. Has anyone actually READ ‘The Ugly American’?
This is a $500 Million effort to deal with symptoms INSTEAD of acknowledging and tackling the real problem:
America’s Industrial Revolution push to greater productivity in the agriculture and livestock markets has been tremendously successful over the last 100 years or so but we have (several decades ago now) reached the Law of Diminishing Returns.
In this case, that means our selective breeding (of both plants and animals) for their most productive – and even resilient – qualities has created mono-cultures. Mono-cultures aren’t diverse (obviously) and that makes them vulnerable to disease and other weaknesses.
Instead of spending $500M on treating the symptoms we created by breeding mono-cultures, we should instead introduce diverse populations into the primary stock.
It would be cheaper, the results would come faster and the net result would be the return to a more resilient population. This was the lesson of The Ugly American – the simple answer is more effective than the costly, “Look at me spending gobs of money doing something” answer.
I love Trump and his approach to ridding our ship of liberty of its barnacles, he’s just missing the boat on this one and I hope he realizes it quickly so he can course correct.
MAGA! (MOPGA? *Make Our Poultry Great Again*)