The number of birds slaughtered peaked last spring at almost 21 million in March, leaving farmers leery of what they must face in the months ahead. The Bureau of Labor Statistics doesn’t track retail turkey prices the same way as part of its inflation data, but the Agriculture Department says the wholesale price of turkey went from $1.29 per pound last January just before the bird flu outbreak began to $1.72 per pound last month. That’s down slightly from last fall when the price peaked at $4.75, but it is up significantly from the year before when chicken breasts were selling for $3.73 per pound. The price for a pound of chicken breast was $4.32 in January. That spike prompted calls for a price-gouging investigation although the industry maintains that the combination of bird flu and significantly higher feed, fuel and labor costs is what’s driving prices so high. This bills continue to pile up this year as cases spread, and that includes the cost to consumers.Įgg prices shot up to $4.82 a dozen in January from $1.93 a year earlier, according to the latest government figures. It cost the industry roughly $3 billion as farmers incurred additional costs and lost money when they didn’t have any birds on their farms. The federal government spent nearly $1 billion to deal with infected birds, clean up barns and compensate farmers. That previous outbreak remains the most expensive animal health disaster in U.S. In 2015, about 50 million chickens and turkeys were slaughtered on more than 200 farms in 15 states. Iowa - the nation’s biggest egg producer - leads the nation with nearly 16 million birds slaughtered. Only Hawaii, Louisiana and West Virginia have yet to report a case of bird flu. That is because any time the virus is detected, the entire flock on that farm - which can number in the millions - must be killed to limit the spread of the disease. In the current outbreak, 58.4 million birds have been slaughtered on more than 300 commercial farms in 47 states. “The past year has been devastating for the turkey industry as we experience, unequivocally, the worst HPAI (highly pathogenic avian influenza) outbreak in the industry’s history,” National Turkey Federation spokeswoman Shelby Newman said. The outbreak is already more widespread than the last major bird flu outbreak in 2015, but it hasn’t proven as costly yet partly because the government and industry applied lessons learned eight years ago.
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