Egg prices have skyrocketed in the last year. The most recent data from the Federal Reserve Bank in St. Louis shows that in November, the average price of a dozen eggs was $3.59. Right now, a dozen eggs in Bloomington costs $4.19.
Rebecca Joniskan, President of the Indiana Poultry Association, said that a lot of those woes are due to the same factors affecting nearly every level of agriculture.
“The high cost of fertilizer and fuel is really what's driving that cost at higher cost of feed,” she said. “And just inflation in general, just kind of everything costing just a bit more, all of those things come together to make those prices higher.”
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There’s one more factor affecting prices that is specific to poultry products; the avian flu epidemic. It’s now been sighted in 49 out of 50 states. Joniskan points out though that Indiana’s flocks have been lucky in that regard.
“Indiana has been fortunate in this disease incident that we have not had any of our egg laying chicken farms impacted directly by this incident,” she said.
As the country’s second largest egg producer, Hoosiers shouldn’t expect to see a shortage of eggs at the grocery store.
As far as when we can expect to see prices decrease, it might be a while. High agricultural input costs are largely thanks to the war in the Ukraine. Russia is a major producer of fertilizer, and sanctioning has driven that price higher and higher. The same can be said for diesel fuel.
Until there is a break in that conflict or farmers can rebuild their flocks, expect the price to hold high.
