Ag Secretary Rollins lays out strategies for avian flu, egg prices

Just weeks after being sworn into her role as U.S. Agriculture Secretary, Brooke Rollins is focusing on battling the spread of bird flu, protecting the poultry industry, and helping to bring egg prices down.

Rollins released details of the USDA’s new $1 billion strategy to curb the bird flu virus that has killed over 166 million chickens in the U.S. since the latest outbreak began in 2022. Part of the plan is to increase imports of eggs to relieve the shortage and help lower prices.

“… the Trump administration is taking the issue seriously,” Rollins wrote. “American farmers need relief, and American consumers need affordable food. To every family struggling to buy eggs: We hear you, we’re fighting for you, and help is on the way.”

Rollins said that the solution is focused on both the short term and long term.

“The important piece is not just this immediate short-term goal of getting the cost of eggs down and repopulating our layers and locking our barns down,” she recently told Farm Journal at the Top Producer Summit in Kansas City. “But much more importantly, perhaps, is figuring this out for the long term, so we’re not having the same conversation over and over and over again.”

As Rollins detailed in an opinion piece in the Wall Street Journal, the five-pronged strategy includes an additional $500 million for biosecurity measures, $400 million in financial relief for affected farmers, and $100 million for vaccine research, action to reduce regulatory burdens, and exploring temporary import options.

During the National Association of State Departments of Agriculture 2025 Winter Policy Conference in February, Rollins told state agriculture officials that the USDA will begin increasing egg exports to ease the demand and help bring down the price of eggs.

Turkey, which is one of the world’s largest exporters of eggs, is expected to export 15,000 tonnes of eggs to the U.S. through July.

NASDA CEO Ted McKinney said members also passed two action items to initiate first steps on the amended policy. One calling for a national vaccine strategy led by USDA Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service, coordinated with industry and the National Association of State Animal Health Officials. The second action item urges Congress to enact comprehensive legislation that supports the USDA APHIS indemnity and compensation program for foreign animal disease outbreaks.

“Swift, collective action is needed to implement a consistent plan, including resources to take needed measures to protect farms and livestock from highly pathogenic avian influenza and limit spread further,” McKinney said.

Half of the $1 billion price tag will be spent shoring up biosecurity efforts and will happen relatively quickly. Rollins said that the biosecurity money is based on a pilot program involving 150 separate poultry operations employing specific biosecurity measures.

“Of those 150, only one has seen the avian flu,” Rollins told the farm news outlet.

Rollins said monies to support this nationwide effort have been “repurposed from other programs within the USDA” and savings found within the program from the Department of Government Efficiency.

What are the details of the USDA’s five-pronged approach to address avian flu?

• Biosecurity: The department is dedicating up to $500 million to implement a pilot program called Wildlife Biosecurity Assessments to limit contamination at commercial egg-laying farms. “USDA will now provide this consulting service at no cost to all commercial egg-laying chicken farms,” Rollins said in The Wall Street Journal piece. “We will also pay up to 75% of the cost to repair biosecurity vulnerabilities.”
• Financial relief: Farmers whose flocks were hit by avian flu will have access to $400 million in increased financial relief, and assistance for faster approval to restart operations after an outbreak, Rollins said.
• Vaccines: The USDA will consult with state leaders, poultry and dairy farmers, and public-health professionals on possible use of a vaccine for egg-laying chickens, Rollins said. The department will provide up to $100 million in research and development to improve the efficacy of vaccines and other therapeutics. “This should help reduce the need to ‘depopulate’ flocks, which means killing chickens on a farm where there’s an outbreak,” she said.
• Easing of regulations: The USDA will examine “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,” Rollins said. The law has helped drive the state’s average price of eggs to $9.68 a dozen, she said. “We also want to make it easier for families to raise backyard chickens.”
• Explore temporary import-export options: USDA will explore options for temporarily increasing egg imports and decreasing exports, if applicable, to supplement the domestic supply, subject to safety reviews. Eggs imported into the country must meet stringent U.S. safety standards, Rollins wrote in the Wall Street Journal, adding that the U.S. would be mindful of “American farmers’ access to markets in the future.”

Agriculture groups say plan is another step in the right direction

National Milk Producers Federation President and CEO Gregg Doud said dairy farmers and all of agriculture take biosecurity seriously, and thanked the USDA and the Trump administration for actions that will further those efforts.

“We support the department’s initiatives to advance vaccine development and deployment that will help control, and ultimately eliminate, the virus in dairy cattle,” Doud said.

National Chicken Council President Harrison Kircher applauded the administration’s commitment to combat avian flu across all species.

“Particularly, we appreciate the measured and science-based approach for the potential use of an effective and applicable vaccine for laying hens and turkeys, and the administration’s commitment to work with our trading partners to minimize any potential negative trade effects should a vaccine ever be used,” he said. “As the administration works to remove unnecessary burdens to bring down the price of eggs, we will continue to encourage FDA to act on our petition to modify an Obama-era regulation that would release up to 400 million surplus broiler hatching eggs into the egg breaking market.

Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) says the Department of Agriculture’s avian flu strategy is an important step to support our farmers who are losing flocks and help consumers facing skyrocketing egg prices.

“The administration must also confirm it has rehired all avian response staff fired in recent weeks, and ensure that no other avian flu and animal disease response efforts are impacted by recent firings and funding freezes,” she said of the recent firings in the USDA.

Reporting by Colleen Kottke, Wisconsin State Farmer