As the price of eggs reaches record highs, the federal government is looking into importing more eggs from other countries, Brooke L. Rollins, the agriculture secretary, said on Wednesday.
Ms. Rollins, in an interview on Fox Business, said that the United States was in talks with several countries to secure immediate egg imports as a short-term solution. In addition to importing eggs, the department will invest up to $1 billion in its five-pronged approach to combating bird flu, Ms. Rollins wrote in an op-ed published in The Wall Street Journal on Wednesday.
That includes providing up to $500 million in funding to egg producers to enhance biosecurity measures, $400 million in financial relief for farmers whose flocks are affected by the flu and $100 million in research and development for vaccines and therapeutics. The Agriculture Department has not yet authorized a vaccine for poultry, in part because of concerns that vaccination would imperil American exports.
The department is also “examining the best way to protect farmers from overly prescriptive state laws,” Ms. Rollins wrote, citing a California animal welfare law that has been a legal target of business groups.
While Ms. Rollins did not specify which countries would provide egg imports, it is worth noting that Canada, a target of President Trump’s trade policies, is the largest source of eggs imported into the United States. The Egg Producers Central Union in Turkey recently announced that it would export about 420 million eggs to the United States. That is equivalent to less than 5 percent of the total amount of eggs, some 8.8 billion, produced in the United States in January, according to the latest estimate from the Agriculture Department.
Ms. Rollins said that consumers should expect egg prices to continue rising in the weeks leading up to Easter, as demand typically increases, but that the cost of eggs would “hopefully” decrease by the summer.
