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agriculture
Under Trump, Egg Prices Smash Record for Third Straight Month
"The only egg prices Donald Trump is lowering," quipped the DNC chair, "is our nest eggs."
Apr 10, 2025
For the third straight month, U.S retail egg prices have hit a record high, despite falling wholesale prices, no bird flu outbreaks, and President Donald Trump's campaign promises—and recent misleading claims.
On Thursday, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics' Consumer Price Index (CPI) reported the average retail cost of a dozen eggs rose from $5.90 in February to $6.23 last month.
Egg prices continue to increase despite bird flu outbreak slowing finance.yahoo.com/news/egg-pri...
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— Yahoo Finance (@yahoofinance.com) April 10, 2025 at 6:22 AM
Earlier this week, Trump claimed that "eggs are down 79%" due to his administration's work, a possible reference to the wholesale price, which does not reflect retail cost due to the role that profit-hungry industrial producers and grocery cartels play in inflating prices.
Trump also said that egg prices "are going down more," a statement that contradicts not only recent trends but also his own administration's Food Price Outlook, which forecasts a 57.6% increase in egg prices for 2025, with a prediction interval of 31.1%-91.5%.
Recent record egg prices have largely been driven by an avian flu epidemic that has forced farmers to cull over 166 million birds, most of them egg-laying hens. However, no farms are currently reporting any bird flu outbreaks.
On Tuesday, Cal-Maine Foods, the nation's largest egg producer, announced quarterly profits of $509 million, more than triple its gains from a year ago. The Mississippi-based company, which produces around 20% of U.S. eggs, also enjoyed a more than 600% increase in gross profits between fiscal years 2021-23, according to the consumer advocacy group Food & Water Watch (FWW).
Yet even as its profits soared, Cal-Maine still took $42 million in federal compensation for losses due to bird flu.
The top five egg producers own roughly half of all U.S. laying hens. The biggest of those corporations is Cal-Maine, which just announced quarterly profits of $509 million — more than 3x what it made a year ago. Corporate concentration + bird flu = a price-hiking free for all.
— Robert Reich (@rbreich.bsky.social) April 9, 2025 at 10:31 AM
Last month, the U.S. Justice Department's antitrust division launched an investigation of alleged price-fixing by the nation's largest egg producers, including Cal-Maine, which isn't even the largest recipient of avian flu-related government assistance. Versova, which operates farms in Iowa and Ohio, has been allotted more than $107 million in federal bird flu relief, The Washington Postreported Wednesday. Hillandale Farms, a Pennsylvania-based company sold last month to Global Eggs, received $53 million in avian flu-related subsidies.
"For those companies to be bailed out and then turn around and set exploitative prices, it just adds insult to injury for consumers," Thomas Gremillion, director of food policy at the Consumer Federation of America, told the Post. "Absolutely, it's unfair."
FWW research director Amanda Starbuck took aim at the corporate food system, saying Thursday that "the industry is proving itself effective at extracting enormous profits out of American consumers."
"We are all paying for it—at the store, with food shortages, and with the growing threat of the next pandemic," she continued.
"Restoring sanity to the grocery aisle will require immediate action to transform our food system," Starbuck added. "To lower egg prices, the Trump administration must take on the food monopolies, hasten and prioritize its investigation into corporate price fixing, and stop the spread of factory farms."
The fresh CPI figures weren't all bad news, as the index saw its first decline in five years, falling 0.1% mainly on the strength of lower oil prices. The 12-month increase in consumer prices also slowed from 2.8% to 2.4%.
However, the mildly positive CPI news was overshadowed by the economic uncertainty caused by Trump's mercurial global trade war, including a ramped-up 145% tariff on imports from China, one of the top U.S. trading partners, and ongoing stock market chaos.
"The only egg prices Donald Trump is lowering," Democratic National Committee Chair Ken Martin quipped earlier this week, "is our nest eggs."
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Cutting Conservation Funding Endangers our Food System
The Trump administration is gutting USDA funding that helps small farms preserve local heritage breeds that boost the biodiversity and resilience of U.S. livestock.
Apr 09, 2025
As part of the Trump administration’s overhaul of the U.S. Department of Agriculture, funding for several programs, including conservation contracts and local food purchasing for schools, was cut or frozen.
The lack of funding of these and uncertainty for other programs is already having a chilling effect on farmers and our food systems, and the impacts have been immediate and wide-ranging. These programs support critical conservation initiatives in agriculture—from assisting local farms and sustainable agriculture research to farmer technical aid. These local programs also support smaller-scale farmers to maintain local or heritage breeds such as Galloway cattle or Tamworth pigs that are not suitable for large-scale, industrial agriculture.
As a result, farms and livelihoods throughout the country are threatened. These programs provide vital support for U.S. agricultural infrastructure and long-term sustainability including the diversity of food available to the public. The link between biodiversity and food security is well known—vibrant biotic life supports soil fertility, pest control, pollination, water quality, and sustainable agriculture. Genetic biodiversity in our foods is also important—domesticated plants and animals that are genetically diverse are less likely to succumb to the same diseases or pests, and many have adapted to a range of environmental and climatic conditions. The more genetically diverse our food system is, the less vulnerable it is to collapse.
Local breeds are living genetic repositories. They are the result of long-term histories and cannot be simply made in a laboratory. They are the future of our food security.
For this reason, conservation efforts must include protecting domestic animal breeds to establish living genetic banks for future food security during times of abrupt climate change. Unlike plants that can be propagated from seeds stored in vast seed banks, the most efficient way to maintain biodiversity in domesticated livestock is by keeping herds of local or heritage breeds, since sperm cryopreservation is expensive; susceptible to damage or loss; and limited to rich, industrialized nations and communities. Breed conservation can occur on a local level and doesn’t need to be expensive—it’s been successfully done in the past.
Almost 100 years ago, Texas longhorns—the iconic emblem of the state of Texas—almost went extinct. At the time, American tastes in meat favored fattier cattle breeds and the lean, grass-fed longhorns were unpopular, difficult to transport in railroad cars due to their big horns, and not economically viable for ranchers. This breed already had a long history in the area and was particularly well adapted to the hot, arid climate of southern Texas. In the 1920s when the breed was on the brink of extinction, U.S. Forest Service employees established a protected herd at the Wichita Mountains Wildlife Refuge in Oklahoma, and a small group of ranchers established other small herds in Oklahoma and Texas, including in Texas state parks. It was through the efforts of this small group of people that the breed was kept alive. As American tastes in meat changed, Texas longhorns became economically popular once again.
Today, they are highly valued for their lean meat and their specific climatic adaptation. They are also living genetic repositories—their specific genetic adaptations are now used to help create new breeds of cattle for dealing with future climate change such as those predicted for several parts of the southern United States and elsewhere.
According to data collected by the United Nations’ Food and Agriculture Organization, Texas longhorns are one of over 8,700 breeds of domesticated animals used for food production on the planet today. Most are part of the “big five”: cattle, sheep, chickens, goats, and pigs. Over 8,000 of these breeds are local—recorded in only one country and most of them are specific to particular areas or regions like Texas longhorns, Gulf Coast sheep in Florida and Louisiana, and Mulefoot pigs in Missouri.
Many of these breeds, however, are also vulnerable to extinction—they are not as profitable and farmers focus on a few breeds to maximize products for national and global markets. There are estimates that over 100 livestock breeds have gone extinct in the last 15 years, and29.54% of existing livestock breeds worldwide are at risk of extinction, while for the majority of breeds we lack data on their status, size of population, or likelihood for survival for the future.
Why are local breeds important? They are the result of centuries and even millennia of adaptation to their environments through human management and natural selection pressures. They are living gene banks of biodiversity and have special traits in comparison with industrial livestock—some are resistant to parasites or diseases; feed on different forage; or are highly fertile or long-lived. Others thrive in hot or humid environments such as Gulf Coast sheep that don’t have wool on their bellies, legs, or heads.
Despite many years of research, current information on these breeds is sorely lacking. There is very limited genetic data on most of the economically important animal breeds on the planet, and the pressures of industrialized agriculture are pushing farmers to focus on the few breeds with the current highest economic rewards. But this comes at a cost—today’s industrial farming strategies are not sustainable for an unknown future. Local breeds are living genetic repositories. They are the result of long-term histories and cannot be simply made in a laboratory. They are the future of our food security.
Many species are on the brink of extinction and need conservation help, and many are perhaps more photogenic or emblematic than cows or sheep. However, livestock breeds need this help too if we want to secure genetic diversity in our foods. This conservation doesn’t need to be expensive—dedicated farmers and conservation groups should be financially supported in maintaining local breeds. If the federal government is turning its back on these initiatives, state and local governments need to help fill the gap. Small investments today will pay dividends in the future to keep our food systems resilient.
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A Different 'Abundance Agenda': Avoiding Delusions and Diversions
If there is to be a decent human future—perhaps if there is to be any human future—it will be fewer people consuming less energy and creating less stuff.
Mar 30, 2025
For the next few weeks, the buzzword in US debates on the liberal/left about economics and ecology will be “abundance” after the release of the book with that title by Ezra Klein (New York Times) and Derek Thompson (The Atlantic magazine).
The book poses politically relevant questions: Have policies favored by Democrats and others on the political left impeded innovation with unnecessary red tape for building projects? Can regulatory reform and revitalized public investment bring technological progress that can solve problems in housing, infrastructure, energy, and agriculture? The book says yes to both.
Those debates have short-term political implications but are largely irrelevant to the human future. The challenge is not how to do more but how to live with less.
All societies face multiple cascading ecological crises—emphasis on the plural. There are many crises, not just climate change, and no matter what a particular society’s contribution to the crises there is nowhere to hide. The cascading changes will come in ways we can prepare for but can’t predict, and it’s likely the consequences will be much more dire than we imagine.
If that seems depressing, I’m sorry. Keep reading anyway.
Rapid climate disruption is the most pressing concern but not the only existential threat. Soil erosion and degradation undermine our capacity to feed ourselves. Chemical contamination of our bodies and ecosystems undermines the possibility of a stable long-term human presence. Species extinction and loss of biodiversity will have potentially catastrophic effects on the ecosystems on which our lives depend.
Why aren’t more people advocating limits? Because limits are hard.
I could go on, but anyone who wants to know about these crises can easily find this information in both popular media and the research literature. For starters, I recommend the work of William Rees, an ecologist who co-created the ecological footprint concept and knows how to write for ordinary people.
The foundational problem is overshoot: There are too many people consuming too much in the aggregate. The distribution of the world’s wealth is not equal or equitable, of course, but the overall program for human survival is clear: fewer and less. If there is to be a decent human future—perhaps if there is to be any human future—it will be fewer people consuming less energy and creating less stuff.
Check the policy statements of all major political players, including self-described progressives and radicals, and it’s hard to find mention of the need to impose limits on ourselves. Instead, you will find delusions and diversions.
The delusions come mainly from the right, where climate-change denialism is still common. The more sophisticated conservatives don’t directly challenge the overwhelming consensus of researchers but instead sow seeds of doubt, as if there is legitimate controversy. That makes it easier to preach the “drill, baby, drill” line of expanding fossil fuel production, no matter what the ecological costs, instead of facing limits.
The diversions come mainly from the left, where people take climate change seriously but invest their hopes in an endless array of technological solutions. These days, the most prominent tech hype is “electrify everything,” which includes a commitment to an unsustainable car culture with electric vehicles, instead of facing limits.
There is a small kernel of truth in the rhetoric of both right and left.
When the right says that expanding fossil energy production would lift more people out of poverty, they have a valid point. But increased production of fossil energy is not suddenly going to benefit primarily the world’s poor, and the continued expansion of emissions eventually will doom rich and poor alike.
When the left says renewable energy is crucial, they have a valid point. But if the promise of renewable energy is used to prop up existing levels of consumption, then the best we can expect is a slowing of the rate of ecological destruction. Unless renewables are one component of an overall down-powering, they are a part of the problem and not a solution.
Why aren’t more people advocating limits? Because limits are hard. People—including me and almost everyone reading this—find it hard to resist what my co-author Wes Jackson and I have called “the temptations of dense energy.” Yes, lots of uses of fossil fuels are wasteful, and modern marketing encourages that waste. But coal, oil, and natural gas also do a lot of work for us and provide a lot of comforts that people are reluctant to give up.
That’s why the most sensible approach combines limits on our consumption of energy and rationing to ensure greater fairness, both of which have to be collectively imposed. That’s not a popular political position today, but if we are serious about slowing, and eventually stopping, the human destruction of the ecosphere, I see no other path forward.
In the short term, those of us who endorse “fewer and less” will have to make choices between political candidates and parties that are, on the criteria of real sustainability, either really hard-to-describe awful or merely bad. I would never argue that right and left, Republican and Democrat, are indistinguishable. But whatever our immediate political choices, we should talk openly about ecological realities.
That can start with imagining an “abundance agenda” quite different than what Klein and Thompson, along with most conventional thinking, propose. Instead of more building that will allegedly be “climate friendly,” why not scale back our expectations? Instead of assuming a constantly mobile society, why not be satisfied with staying home? Instead of dreaming of more gadgets, why not live more fully in the world around us? People throughout history have demonstrated that productive societies can live with less.
Instead of the promise of endless material abundance, which has never been consistent with a truly sustainable future, let’s invest in what we know produces human flourishing—collective activity in community based on shared needs and reduced wants. For me, living in rural New Mexico, that means being one of the older folks who are helping younger folks get a small-scale farm off the ground. It means being an active participant in our local acequia irrigation system. It means staying home instead of vacationing. It means being satisfied with the abundant pleasures of this place and these people without buying much beyond essentials.
I’m not naïve—given the house I live in, the car I drive, and the food I buy from a grocery store, I’m still part of a hyper-extractive economy that is unsustainable. But instead of scrambling for more, I am seeking to live with less. I know that’s much harder for people struggling to feed a family and afford even a modest home. But rather than imagining ways to keep everyone on the consumption treadmill, only with more equity, we can all contribute ideas about how to step off.
Our choices are clear: We can drill more, which will simply get us to a cruel end game even sooner. We can pretend that technology will save us, which might delay that reckoning. If we can abandon the delusions and diversions, there’s no guarantee of a happy future. But there’s a chance of a future.
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