Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins announced a multi-faceted plan on Wednesday to address soaring egg prices, attributing the current situation to both the ongoing avian flu outbreak and a history of regulatory burdens, Fox News reports.
Speaking on Fox News’ “America’s Newsroom,” Rollins outlined the Trump administration’s strategy to lower egg prices in both the short and long term. She stated that President Donald Trump’s administration is actively working to combat the bird flu virus, which has significantly reduced chicken populations and subsequently driven up egg costs.
Rollins placed partial blame for the inflated prices on a “long road” of overregulation dating back to the Obama administration.
A key component of the plan involves efforts to repopulate poultry farms that were forced to cull their flocks due to avian flu exposure. Rollins stated that the administration is currently reviewing the culling policy itself.
When asked by host Dana Periono whether revisiting the policy of killing chickens was on the table, Rollins confirmed that the Trump administration is exploring its effectiveness.
“We are going to have some pilot programs across the country that work to prove that out,” Rollins explained. “The avian flu is an extremely fast-spreading virus, and within a couple of days it spreads so quickly that most of the chickens have died anyway. But there are some farms that are out there and that are willing to really try this.”
As a short-term solution, Rollins stated that the Department of Agriculture is working to import eggs from other countries to meet domestic demand and alleviate price pressures. However, she emphasized that this approach is not a sustainable long-term fix.
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