The plot chickens: Why the price of eggs is soaring (in some parts)

Few things unnerve politicians more than rising food prices.

The egg is a staple of American breakfasts, with the average citizen consuming more than 280 annually. So, when prices rose to $5 (about ₹415) per dozen in December 2022, up from $1.50 (about ₹113) in 2021, leaders were anxious. Prices fell in 2023, before rising again at the tail end of 2024.

In fact, comparing 2024 and 2020 prices shows that the average American family shelled out $1,600 more on eggs a year. It’s no wonder inflation was a hot-button topic in the election.

Egg prices have been a subject of conversation historically. Journalist Diane Toops, in her fascinating book Eggs: A Global History, writes of a 19th-century Methodist clergyman’s account of an outburst from an egg seller, indignant at the low price quoted by her buyer. “What, do ye s’pose our hens are gwine to strain their selves a laying eggs at three cents a dozen? Lay ’em youself, and see how you’d like the price,” she exclaimed.

Why have prices been rising so fast this past year?

The answer lies in a virulent strain of bird flu. This disease is caused by the avian influenza virus, which belongs to the same family (Orthomyxoviridae) and species (Influenza A species) as the flu that infects humans.

While some variants are more virulent than others, we worry especially about those that decimate bird populations or have the potential to infect other species, specifically humans. After all, many recent influenza epidemics began with an avian influenza virus, including the 1957, 1968 and 2009 (swine flu) ones, and quite likely the deadly 1918 pandemic.

Migratory birds can and do spread the virus far and wide, with densely packed factory farms quickening the spread of the disease.

This makes avian influenza a ticking timebomb, with the next pandemic a case of “when”, not “if”. Surveillance, early response, and transparency can stem the spread. If only.

The 2022 US bird flu epidemic caused the death or culling of about 57 million hens (including 44 million egg layers). Unsurprisingly, egg prices jumped. Then, in March 2024, cows in Texas began falling ill, and birds in the vicinity began to die in droves. Rural vets raised an alarm, but the US Department of Agriculture (USDA), tasked with containing such outbreaks, was reportedly slow to respond.

The issue, per investigative reports by Vanity Fair and others, stems from the dual mandate of USDA: supporting agriculture exports (which were worth about $174 billion in 2023) and ensuring the safety of agricultural products, a mandate made harder in 2024, because it was an election year.

And so, the virus spread, and hens began dying or being culled again. Because it takes a few months for a chicken to start laying eggs, there is a lag before production can begin to climb again, with prices rising in the interim.

Eggs touched $5.9 (about ₹513) per dozen in February this year. Talking heads began advising Americans to keep hens at home.

With hens still being culled, pricey eggs will be on the global mind for some time.

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The egg epitomises trade-offs.

Take a very simple, very basic question: “Are they good for you?”

It depends. Eggs are considered the perfect protein, since they contain all the essential amino acids, and are easy to digest. A single large hen egg contains 6.3 gm of protein (3.6 gm in the white, the rest in the yolk). While the yolk is rich in cholesterol, which has traditionally been associated with heart disease, newer studies have muddied this linkage. Current thinking (which could change) states that, for most people, an egg a day shouldn’t add to health risk.

Meanwhile, the egg has very real health benefits. It appears to help in weight-loss regimens, possibly by modulating hunger-hormone levels. It is a great source of choline, a precursor of the neurotransmitter acetylcholine, critical for brain function. Acetylcholine influences mood, memory and muscle control. Studies suggest that when expectant mothers eat eggs, for instance, their offspring’s cognitive development benefits.

While the human body can make its own choline, this ability declines as we age, making us more dependent on dietary sources.

But here’s the trade-off: Gut bacteria convert choline into trimethylamine (TMA), which the liver oxidises into trimethylamine N-oxide (TMAO). High TMAO levels have been associated with an increased risk of stroke and cardiovascular death. Each person’s risk profile depends on their gut biome makeup and the rate at which their liver oxidises TMA.

For instance, vegetarians and vegans appear to have lower TMAO levels for the same amount of choline ingested. The link may be related to fibre. After learning this, I started putting half a cup of spinach into my son’s morning omelette. Also, menstruating women (with high oestrogen levels) have lower TMAO levels for the same amount of choline ingested than post-menopausal women.

Meanwhile, many of us don’t get enough protein. As of the most recent survey data available, the average Indian consumes about 56 gm of protein daily (a number that has been falling, over time). Per accepted nutritional wisdom, this is not enough. A low-protein diet has been linked to a variety of illnesses, including muscle loss, fatty liver disease, decreased immunity and stunting in children.

Now add the impact of a changing climate. Most Indians get most of their protein from cereals such as rice. As ambient carbon-dioxide levels rise, the protein content in cereal falls. Something’s got to change. Economic considerations seal the argument for eggs.

Eggs, per gm of protein, are far cheaper than chicken, beef, pea-protein or rice, making them a suitable mass-market protein source.

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Surprisingly, even though the hen was likely first domesticated in this region, ancient Indian cuisine appears light on eggs, probably because “some sort of taboo existed”, food historian KT Achaya has noted in his writings. As the hen travelled westward, her eggs began to infiltrate our diet. The cookbook of Marcus Gavius Apicius, from whose name we get the term “epicure”, suggests that Ancient Romans enjoyed their eggs in a baked custard at the start of their banquets, or with honey and pepper (in the forerunner of the omelette).

Toops writes of how Turks, Arabs and North Africans prized the biochemistry of eggs in binding their fillings and thickening their sauces, as did later Italians, who used them in pastas and pastries.

In the 16th and 17th centuries, rising food prices in Europe saw the relatively cheap egg become more popular. At that time, a celebrated French chef, François Pierre de la Varenne, used the emulsifying ability of yolks to create the iconic sauces that still define modern French cooking. Europeans took their eggs with them to the Americas, where, in the last century, capitalism industrialised production.

Taken to an extreme, this led to chickens being cooped in cages no larger than an A4 sheet of paper and exposed to artificial lighting for 14 to 16 hours a day to encourage laying, with their beaks clipped to keep them from pecking at one another.

Such an environment is conducive to infection, so the hens are dosed with antibiotics and other medicines, which leach into eggs and then into us.

So, while industrial production generally keeps eggs affordable, the trade-off is cruelty for hens, and possibly an addled gut biome for us.

***

As the medical profession warmed up to eggs, meanwhile, production levels skyrocketed. By 2023, six times as many eggs were being produced as in 1960.

In India, in the wake of the iconic “Sunday ho ya Monday, roz khao ande” egg-a-day campaign, egg production grew five times between the 1990s and 2023.

What is the climate impact of this?

Well, the production of eggs emits less carbon-dioxide and uses up less water and land than any other animal protein. While vegetarian sources such as pulses and rice occupy less land and emit less CO2 than eggs for the same amount of protein, water use, a critical issue for India, is far greater for vegetable protein than for eggs.

The climate footprint of eggs derives largely from chicken feed, which, today, is largely grain and soy meal. When soy cultivation causes deforestation (as in Brazil), we have a problem. But if soy is grown efficiently, the egg’s climate footprint falls further.

Climate impacts hens and eggs too.

As B Soundararajan, the chairman of Suguna Foods (one of the largest poultry manufacturers in India), told me: “I’m very concerned about climate change. In the summer or when temperatures rise, egg-laying suffers, both in number and size, and broiler chickens put on less weight, or the chicken’s immunity falls and more of them die. Feed cost rises too. All this reduces the profitability of broiler and egg production.”

Recently, labs and start-ups have been growing black soldier fly larvae (BSFL) on vegetable scraps to feed hens. If larvae grown on waste replace soy in poultry feed, the climate footprint of the resultant egg falls dramatically. Such use of waste also reduces the generation of methane from scraps at landfills.

BSFL have been shown, in controlled studies, to improve chicken immunity. But “consistency and cost (of the larvae) must improve,” Soundararajan says. Start-ups such as Ensect Farm are trying different formulations to achieve this. A good result could improve the sustainability of eggs while making a dent in India’s mountains of solid waste.

Hens and eggs can improve the rural economy as well, Soundararajan says. Eggs laid by backyard hens are a source of protein at no added cost, since such hens are typically reared on household scraps. The birds themselves can be bred and sold, serving as “anytime money”.

Ironically, at a time of skyrocketing prices in the US, Indian egg prices have been steady or falling. Exports to the US (we already export to Sri Lanka, Oman and others) would improve farmer incomes while not straining India’s water resources (as carabeef exports do). Farmers would need to overcome certain barriers in order to ship to the US, including obtaining bird flu-free certifications.

As trade-offs go, this is not a particularly difficult one to make.

(Mridula Ramesh is a climate-tech investor and author of The Climate Solution and Watershed. She can be reached on tradeoffs@climaction.net)