Massive bird losses and market disruption prompt producers to advocate for vaccine strategies and more testing, funding and auditors.
February 3, 2025
Grappling with the loss of 117 million egg-laying hens since the current outbreak of highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) began in 2022, U.S. egg farmers – led by United Egg Producers (UEP), the industry’s policy group – will meet on Capitol Hill this week with House and Senate agriculture leaders, members of Congress and the U.S. Department of Agriculture to urge swift and decisive action on HPAI.
The aggressiveness and lethality of HPAI shows no signs of slowing, UEP said in a news release. The egg industry has lost nearly 20 million birds in 2025 alone, severely disrupting the nationwide egg production system and creating impacts for customers and consumers. In the past year, egg farmers have been fighting on dual fronts: the continued spread of HPAI by migratory birds and waterfowl, and a new threat from a particularly virulent strain of HPAI carried in dairy cattle.
“While our farmers for decades have had collaborative, effective partnerships with state and federal officials, our elected leaders and USDA, more simply must be done,” said Chad Gregory, president and chief executive officer of UEP. “The urgency of this situation cannot be overstated. The costs of inaction are too high to ignore, and we are calling on the new administration and congressional leaders to collaborate with regulatory agencies, animal scientists, academia, epidemiologists, public health experts and other livestock and poultry groups to drive solutions – and to do so with great speed.”
Egg producers will be asking members of Congress to sign on to a letter to USDA Secretary of Agriculture nominee Brooke Rollins that urges the agency to act immediately on several key priorities for the industry in the context of the severity of the crisis in egg production. Among the industry’s recommended actions:
A deliberate, forward-looking strategy for animal vaccination, including acquisition of vaccine stockpiles, field trials and outreach to trade partners;
An HPAI Strategic Initiative to engage experts within industry, universities and government to expand knowledge and develop novel methods of prevention, detection and response;
Movement controls that apply to all livestock that present risks and support for states moving quickly through the first four stages of USDA’s National Milk Testing Strategy;
Securing adequate numbers of qualified USDA auditors to support enforcement of the December 2024 interim rule on biosecurity audits, and
Revision of indemnity rates for HPAI disaster assistance using accurate data to better reflect the financial toll on egg producers of USDA-required depopulation and repopulation actions following an on-farm detection.
“We are in the fight of our lives – and a fight to preserve our livelihoods. HPAI is a devastating disease and has forced the loss of our flocks, and the speed and virulence of the disease has been catastrophic for farmers like me,” said current UEP chairman Mike West, president of J.S. West & Companies in California. “We’re looking for solutions – and we will invest the time and resources to get there.”
J.S. West in 2024 lost a total of 1.3 million hens, including a flock of 538,000 hens lost in November to the dairy cow strain of HPAI.
West said egg producers across the U.S. have learned important lessons from the 2015 outbreak and invested hundreds of millions of dollars in biosecurity and disease prevention measures.
Among the practices now in place on egg farms are truck, vehicle and equipment washes; shower in-and-out facilities for all employees who work with animals; methods that deter wild birds from landing or resting on egg farms or nearby land; dedicated clothing and footwear for workers, and much more. Despite having the most stringent biosecurity of any poultry farms in the world, those efforts have not proven to be enough to evade HPAI, and more research must be done to understand how this specific strain is moving and spreading, UEP emphasized in the news release.
Recognizing that vaccines are a critical tool in responding to HPAI, UEP also has convened a working group of experts in egg production, animal health, vaccine protocols, epidemiology and trade to develop a multitiered vaccination strategy and make core recommendations for deployment across the industry.
“We are grateful for the outpouring of concern from Congress, state governments and our egg customers and consumers,” said Gregory. “While we are saddened by the continuing loss of our flocks, we are hopeful that together we can redouble our efforts to fight this virus. Egg producers are working tirelessly toward solutions. This is a complex challenge across our entire food system – and it will take all of us partnering together and identifying innovative approaches to solve it.”
He said the industry needs a sustained period of four to six months of no new detections of HPAI to begin recovery but added that full restoration of egg production could take years.
UEP’s farmer-members will be in Washington, D.C., the week of Feb. 3, and will continue to actively engage with government and elected leaders to advance these initiatives and promote a comprehensive, broad-based response and to take swift action to stop further cases of HPAI.
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