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Egg markets calming, for now

A poultry and livestock economist says he’s watching to see if the egg market recovery stalls with the latest highly pathogenic avian influenza outbreak.

“It’s so unpredictable, I can’t give a ton of confidence that the recovery can be sustained for sure.”

Mark Jordan is the executive director of LEAP Market Analytics.

“Notwithstanding this last wave in Arizona, the two-and-a-half-month stretch that had been relatively quiet had allowed the market to calm down quite a bit,” he explains. “A combination of not quite as much panic because of fewer AI cases, also that run-up in retail prices really kind of jarred the consumer.”

USDA says more than 5.5 million birds have been impacted by the virus over the past month in Arizona.

Jordan tells Brownfield, “You’re still looking at prevailing wholesale prices $3 a dozen, still a little bit higher than that.”

“That feels cheap when you’ve seen $8 plus, but at $3 dozen, historically that would still be an outlier way to the upside,” he says.

The latest Egg Market Report says April imports into the U.S. were up 61 percent, while imports of dried egg products climbed 347 percent.

Jordan says import numbers are not as strong as they were following the 2015 HPAI outbreak because global supplies today are limited.