Egg prices drop more than half under Trump; experts credit avian flu recovery

Tariffs and Iran conflict raise costs for U.S. egg farmers

Retail egg prices have dropped sharply since President Trump returned to office in January 2025, falling from an average of $4.95 per dozen that month to $2.27 in August 2026 — a decline of more than half, according to federal data cited by NPR. Trump has repeatedly claimed credit for the move, blaming former President Joe Biden for the high prices American consumers had been paying and asserting that his return to the White House ended the run-up.

But agriculture industry experts interviewed by NPR told a more complicated story. The single largest factor behind the price swing, they said, was not federal policy but the spread and retreat of highly pathogenic avian influenza, which devastated egg-laying hens across the country. “That’s been the big factor, and it’s overwhelming everything else,” said Michael Walden, an emeritus professor of economics at North Carolina State University.

The U.S. began experiencing its largest outbreak of highly pathogenic avian influenza, or avian flu, in years beginning in early 2022. Millions of egg-laying hens died, retail supplies tightened, and prices climbed. A similar wave tore through U.S. farms in late 2024 and early 2025. According to the USDA’s Economic Research Service, nearly 51 million egg-laying hens died or were euthanized between October 2024 and March 2025 alone. A smaller flock was left producing, and the cost of a dozen eggs reached a record $6.23 in March 2025, two months into Trump’s second term.

Consumers felt the increase acutely because eggs are what economists call an inelastic product — demand for them stays largely unchanged when prices rise. Emily Metz, president and CEO of the American Egg Board, an industry marketing group, said eggs occupy an indispensable place in the American diet. “Not only are they a center of the plate item, not only do people eat them by themselves, but people also use them in baked goods, use them in drinks to froth and whip things up,” Metz said.

The 2025–26 winter proved a less severe period for avian flu on U.S. farms, allowing farmers to rebuild their flocks and bringing last year’s record prices back down. Mark Jordan, executive director of LEAP Market Analytics, a consulting firm specializing in animal protein markets, attributed most of the turnaround to how well farms were protected from infection and to how serious that wave of illness was. “I’d say 90–95% of the impact that we’ve seen in terms of prices coming down has just been some measure of biosecurity success and some measure of, you know, luck,” he said.

The administration pointed to its own response. In February 2025, Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins announced up to $1 billion to combat avian flu. The package included up to $500 million to help farms enhance biosecurity protections, supplementing what many producers had already been doing, and as much as $400 million to compensate farmers who had to cull their flocks or destroy eggs in response to a potential infection. The USDA had conducted biosecurity assessments at more than 900 farms as of June 2025. The department also said last year that it would explore ways to increase egg imports.

Imports rose sharply. Egg imports in 2025 reached 121 million dozen-equivalent, up from 29.8 million dozen-equivalent the prior year, according to USDA figures cited by NPR. Jordan characterized that uptick as a positive step toward replenishing domestic supply but said it had a relatively modest impact on a U.S. poultry industry that produces around 90 billion eggs per year. “That’s not nothing, but that’s a small impact,” he said.

Metz said farmers always work closely with the USDA during avian flu outbreaks and that the Rollins plan helped. But she added that last year’s avian flu season was simply much milder. “I think those initiatives have advanced, but we’ve also benefitted in the industry because bird flu is very cyclical,” Metz said. “It follows the wild bird population, and so we haven’t had bird flu in the environment in the same way this year that we had last year.”

Even as the administration responded to avian flu, it also imposed tariffs on foreign trading partners and went to war with Iran — both of which have driven up costs for U.S. egg farmers, industry experts said. Poultry farmers have faced “pretty stiff inflationary pressures from corn and soybean meal” to feed their flocks, Jordan said, while Metz noted that crop farmers feeding the birds have encountered higher fertilizer costs. Transportation prices have risen with higher energy prices, and egg producers have also seen higher costs for packaging, including cardboard and other corrugated materials affected by U.S. trade negotiations with Canada. Metz said farm inputs beyond the animals themselves have all risen significantly in cost over the last several years.

Walden said the loosening of some federal regulations to reduce costs has been outweighed by the negatives. “While the federal government has tried to loosen some regulations on farmers to reduce costs, the benefits there have been far outweighed by the negatives,” he said.

The pressure on producers has rippled into the broader food sector, pushing up overall grocery prices even as egg prices declined. Federal data showed that grocery prices in August were up 2.2% over the prior year, while egg prices fell 23% in the same period.

Separately, the Justice Department and 17 states last year settled a case of alleged price-fixing against three major egg producers — Cal-Maine Foods, Hickman’s Egg Ranch and Versova. Prosecutors alleged that coordination among the companies pushed egg prices even higher in recent years.

The price decline lands in a politically charged moment. With the midterm elections approaching, Trump and other Republicans continue to face voters’ concerns about affordability — in particular, the cost of food.

As MSI previously reported, Cal-Maine Foods — the largest U.S. egg producer — swung to a $35.9 million quarterly loss in July 2026, with conventional egg sales down 71% as the same historic low egg prices now easing grocery bills pushed retail prices lower.