This special edition of EGG-NEWS incorporating industry data is sponsored by VAL-CO as service to egg producers.

Valco Industries was established in 2002, but their DNA goes back to 1935 with the establishment of the original company in Bird-In-Hand, Pennsylvania by the family of Fritz Steudler.  The company is headquartered in New Holland, PA. and employs over 300 in design, manufacturing and sales and operates subsidiary offices in Coldwater, OH, The Netherlands, India, and China. This year VAL-CO was recognized for 70 years as an exhibitor at the IPPE and its predecessors.

Valco Industries operates under the corporate commitment of “helping agriculture feed a hungry world” through providing equipment delivering consistent performance and supported by service to maximize returns by producers on their investment and labor.

Although the VAL-CO brand includes a full line of poultry and hog equipment, products and ventilation products are featured in this edition.

In her confirmation hearings Ms. Brooke Rollins who will to become the U.S. Secretary of Agriculture in the new administration of President Trump, acknowledged the importance of highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) to a wide range of stakeholders including the poultry industry, grain farmers and consumers. Secretary Rollins is not expected to be either an epidemiologist or a virologist, but it is hoped that her strong personal qualities, skill and experience as an administrator will lead to a reevaluation of the control and prevention of highly pathogenic avian influenza by the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) under her control.

The current HPAI epornitic has proceeded unchecked since 2022.  For the edification of the incoming Secretary the box score for 2024 includes approximately 40 million table-egg hens and at least 3 million replacement pullets, 3.4 million commercial meat turkeys and 5 million broilers.  During the month of January 2025 APHIS has presided over the depopulation of close to 5 million laying hens and 0.2 million broilers and turkeys respectively.  Since January 2024 California has lost 52 percent of its flock and the state population of hens is down to 4.4 million. Colorado depopulated 66 percent of its hen population in 2024 with most outbreaks in Weld County leaving the state currently housing a mere 1.3 million laying hens.

The depletion of laying flocks has seriously impacted the supply of eggs with resulting escalation in cost of to consumers and manufacturers.  The National Large white graded loose price increased by 286 percent from $1.62 per dozen during the third week of January 2024 to $6.26 per dozen during the past week. This increase should be compared to the 1.8 percent escalation in the Consumer Price Index (CPI) for food consumed at home as calculated by the Bureau of Labor Statistics. For 2024 the CPI for all food was 2.8 percent. It is estimated that during 2022 expenditure on eggs by consumers was higher by approximately $2 per dozen as a result of H5N1 depopulation, costing households an incremental $15 billion.  The impact on consumers’ budgets in 2024 will exceed this figure.

Agriculture economists are bemused by the disparity between the eight percent reduction in the number of producing hens in comparison to the more than threefold increase in price. This denotes exceptional elasticity (despite the hard shells!). Extreme inflation in the price of eggs is a standout among domestic expenditures. High shelf prices have the potential to embarrass the incoming Administration, given pre-election rhetoric on reducing the cost of food to consumers.  Secretary designate Rollins in her hearing noted “We must work with the great men and women of USDA, the stakeholder communities and state leaders to immediately and comprehensively get a handle on the state of animal disease outbreaks.”

The USDA-APHIS has pursued a program of depopulation and in cooperation with state authorities has achieved high levels of efficiency in diagnosing outbreaks, killing and disposal of flocks and managing decontamination with attendant distribution of indemnity and logistics payments.  It is however evident that HPAI will not simply disappear as it did in 2015 when migratory waterfowl ceased shedding the H5N2 strain virus.  Since 2022, an H5N1 virus of clade 2.3.4.4b; D1.1 genotype has effectively become a panornitic, present on six continents.

APHIS is continuing to implement a “stamping out” policy for a disease that is clearly seasonally and regionally if not nationally endemic. This Sisyphean approach is inappropriate, outdated and unrealistic in relation to the epidemiology of the disease. It is evident that HPAI is introduced and disseminated by migratory waterfowl. Blurring of the previous seasonal fall and spring phases may be due to climatic variation but possibly by extension to domestic resident bird and mammal reservoirs.

There is considerable evidence that the application of effective vaccines as an adjunct to biosecurity can suppress the magnitude and financial impact of outbreaks.  A joint report by the European Center for Disease Prevention and Control in cooperation with the European Food Safety Agency Panel on Animal Health and Welfare confirmed that vaccinated chicken flocks show an increased ability to withstand exposure and demonstrate reduced viral shedding.

A reluctance to allow limited and strategic immunization of U.S. flocks in the face of continuing outbreaks is difficult to comprehend.  Representatives of APHIS have opined that vaccination would be more expensive than depopulation in regional meetings.  If this is the justification driving opposition to vaccination then the Agency should make public their scientific and economic studies to be evaluated by independent agricultural economists and veterinary health professionals.  Could the reluctance to consider tactical vaccination be an institutional inability to admit that past policy and decisions were wrong and that the current approach to control ignoring vaccination may be inappropriate?  It is evident that there is overt pressure by a segment of the industry to resist introduction of vaccination, even on a regional basis, since this may impact exports. Since outbreaks have recently occurred in major broiler-producing states with resulting embargos, the failure of APHIS to negotiate acceptance of vaccination with controls among importing nations has now become a problem to all segments of the U.S. poultry industry.

Extension of HPAI to free-living mammals in contact with infected poultry and dead wild birds emerged as a concern during 2023.  Extensive mortality among marine mammals along the Pacific littoral of South America confirmed that H5N1 can undergo mutation and can become contagious among mammals.  The emergence of H5N1 B13.3 genotype among dairy herds should serve as a warning to the livestock industry. Hogs can serve as mixing vessels for influenza viruses and could contribute to both mutation and drift creating even greater risk for humans.

At present the prospect for emergence of a human epidemic appears minimal.  This said, the consequences would be catastrophic both in terms of public health and to the Nation’s economy as evidenced by the COVID outbreak. Given withdrawal from the WHO and political restraints on federal agencies that support health including the NIH and CDC would place the U.S. in a difficult position should a zoonotic strain of H5N1 emerge.  Prominent virologists in internationally recognized U.S. institutions have raised concerns over possible mutation in the H5 hemagglutinin gene. This was apparent in the two clinical cases in Canada and the U.S. respectively.  To date there has been no evidence of human-to-human transmission among the approximately 70 cases contracted from exposure to either dairy cattle or infected flocks of chickens. One prominent researcher characterized this situation as “Only a matter of time”.  A second specialist noted, “At the end of the day I think it’s a numbers game.”  The fact that producers have placed large numbers of susceptible hens on complexes within all four flyways represents a risk for the occurrence of mutation that could contribute to emergence of a zoonotic strain of avian influenza. Effective vaccines that stimulate immunity in populations of commercial poultry are commercially available. Inactivated H5 and H7 DIVA vaccines have been deployed in many nations including Italy, the Netherlands, the PRC, France and our neighbor Mexico.

It is evident that the approach to control of HPAI adopted by APHIS over the past three years has failed.  Vaccination is required for laying hens and turkeys in areas with a history of reocurring infection.  Decisions relating to vaccination should be based on benefit-to-cost studies taking into account risks of infection, the financial impact of losses and trade consideration that may in reality be overstated.  At the very least, workers coming into contact with live poultry and dairy herds should receive both the trivalent seasonal influenza vaccine and an available H5N1 product manufactured in the U.S. The E.U. has imported this vaccine that has been deployed in Finland and will soon be used in the Netherlands.

The extent of losses among laying hens and other commercial poultry and the extensive cost borne disproportionately by the private sector, producers and consumers should result in a reevaluation of policy with regard to vaccination.  The infection is not controlled, and APHIS should accept epidemiologic and financial reality and recognize the zoonotic potential of H5N1virus.

It is axiomatic that HPAI is effectively “the Newcastle disease of the 2020’s”.  At the outset of my professional career during the late 1960’s, Newcastle disease was as catastrophic as avian influenza is today. This disease is no longer a restraint to production given the availability and universal use of vaccines.

Let us hope that Secretary Rollins will stimulate a reappraisal of vaccination against HPAI and effect changes leading to adoption of tactical vaccination as an adjunct to biosecurity.

Heavens be praised-relief is at hand! The USDA-APHIS will soon have available 2025 calendars with tips on biosecurity. This is a self-delusional exercise in rearranging deck-chairs on the Titanic.

For the edification of those deciding on policy we have lost 37 million hens in 2024 in addition to approximately 3 million turkeys and 5 million broilers with their breeders. It is evident that H5N1 HPAI is endemic in the U.S., is disseminated seasonally by millions of migratory birds and is spread over short distances by the aerogenous route. Power ventilated egg-production complexes are therefore highly vulnerable. Not even the most extreme and efficient structural and operational biosecurity will provide absolute protection in high-risk areas.

The USDA-APHIS has failed stakeholders in the egg and turkey industries who have experienced unprecedented losses and the consumers paying $6 and more per dozen for conventional eggs.  We have not received a report from APHIS based on sound epidemiologic studies since backdated 2023 superficial publications on risk factors in turkey and layer flocks relating to the 2022 phase of the ongoing epornitic.

Segments of he industry need vaccination now! Turkeys, replacement pullets and even mature laying flocks should be protected in high-risk areas. Discussion with APHIS personnel confirms a determination to continue a policy of attempting to eradicate endemic HPAI by  “stamping out” infected flocks ad seriatum. Results show this to be a Sisyphean approach. The reluctance to apply limited strategic vaccination is difficult to comprehend. This may be attributed to:-

• An institutional reluctance to admit that past policy and decisions were wrong
• Overt pressure by a segment of the industry to preserve exports at the expense of consumers and producers of eggs, ducks and turkeys
• A prevailing APHIS mindset that vaccination would be more expensive than depopulation. If this is the case then APHIS should make public their scientific and economic studies. We can then all evaluate the logic and assumptions underlying this doubtful justification to withhold vaccination as an adjunct to existing control measures
• And then it may be that some in positions of authority believe that the infection will just bun out as it did in 2015 albeit with a different strain

The 600 lb. gorilla in the corner is the possibility of a series of additional mutations in circulating H5N1 to become more zoonotic and pathogenic or even contagious as feared by virologists and epidemiologists worldwide. This is acknowledged to be a rare possibility but with extreme consequences. The more susceptible two to four million complexes we have and the inevitability of exposure, the greater will be the possibility of a more zoonotic strain emerging, especially with unprotected and susceptible workers involved in depopulation. Adaptation to mammals with contagion was evident in marine mammals along the Pacific littoral and in Antarctica---and then there have been 675 confirmed dairy herds in California.

This is wake-up time, sophistry and posturing have the makings of a slow-motion train wreck. The infection is not controlled. APHIS should accept reality and recognize the zoonotic potential of H5N1 considered by the WHO as the most likely emerging pandemic strain of human influenza.

The industry needs limited, strategic and controlled flock immunization applying commercially available vaccines now.  France has shown this approach to be feasible and effective.

Experiments conducted at the Scripps Research Institute funded by the National Institute of Health demonstrated the role of the Q226L mutation coding for viral hemagglutinin. The gene allows H5N1 virus to attach to receptors on cells lining the human respiratory tract.  The study was conducted on H5N1 A/Texas/37/2024 isolated from the first patient infected with the virus circulating in a dairy herd. Presence of the Q226L mutation does not necessarily represent the potential for human-to-human transmission (contagion) as this capability would require additional mutations. 

The Scripps finding is consistent with warnings expressed by virologists and epidemiologists that control of H5N1 infection in poultry and dairy herds should be intensified using all appropriate and available modalities.  The APHIS reliance on “stamping out” infections as they are diagnosed is clearly not working. This is evidenced by the extended duration of the current epornitic that has persisted seasonally since 2022 linked to the migration of waterfowl serving as reservoirs of the virus. 

Attempting to eradicate a seasonally and regionally endemic disease is a futile exercise.  Reliance on biosecurity is inadequate as a protective measure given the evident aerogenous spread of infection.  The alarming increase in the incidence rate of bovine influenza-H5N1 in dairy herds especially in the Central Valley of California attests to the impotence of control measures attributed to deficiencies in biosecurity. EGG-NEWS has also commented on the inadequate protection of workers with evident susceptibility to infection of epithelial cells of the conjunctiva and mucosa of the upper respiratory tract.

The impact of HPAI on the egg production segment extends beyond expenditure on control by APHIS and the extensive losses experienced by flock owners. Consumers now bear the brunt of the disease through escalation in the price of eggs.  In 2022, it is estimated that with an average $2 per dozen increase in price, consumers paid $15 billion more for their eggs than during the previous year when flocks were maintained at a level that was in balance with demand.  It is now apparent that a similar situation will pertain in 2024.

It is absolutely necessary for APHIS to backtrack on promoting biosecurity and stamping out infected flocks. It is time to recognize recognize the regional and seasonal endemicity of avian influenza H5N1 and introduce vaccination for replacement pullets and even laying flocks at risk to create an immune population. This will reduce incident cases and lower the probability of the emergence of a mutant, zoonotic strain of avian influenza H5N1.

Sometime in the not too distant future USDA-APHIS, the egg and turkey segments of the poultry industry, Congress, public health agencies and consumer groups will have to face the existential question—Are the risks and the consequences of a human pandemic worth maintaining a proportion of the export volume of broiler leg quarters?  The introduction of vaccination will not be a panacea. It will moderate the alarming and costly incidence rate in poultry. Above all creating an immune poultry population will provide a measure of security against emergence of a ‘swine flu’ or ‘Spanish Flu’ pandemic. Time is on the side of nature given large susceptible flocks and their concentration along major migratory flyways, coupled with the proclivity of single-stranded RNA viruses to undergo mutation.

*Lin, T., et al, A Single Mutation in Bovine Influenza H5N1 Hemagglutinin Switches Specificity to Human Receptors, Science doi:10.1126/science. ADT0180 2024

Conforming to the well-established principle of “too little-too late” the USDA-APHIS has eventually reacted to the concerning incidence rate of bovine influenza-H5N1.  On December 6^th the Agency issued a Federal order together with guidance requiring nationwide sampling of raw milk at farm, processing and distribution levels to detect herd infection with bovine influenza H5N1.

Recognized in March 2024 and present since December 2023, bovine influenza-H5N1 is not simply a “cow disease”.  The infection has zoonotic potential as evidenced by clinical symptoms and serologic evidence of infection among workers.  The presence of bovine influenza H5N1 is also implicated in transmission of infection to poultry flocks in Colorado, California, Michigan and Utah.

The federal order requires:-

• Sharing raw milk samples on request from dairy farmers, bulk milk transporters, transfer stations, and processing facilities that hold milk intended for pasteurization.

• Herd owners demonstrated to have infected animals must provide epidemiologic information for contract tracing and surveillance.

• Private laboratories and state veterinarians must report positive results to the USDA.

The program of milk testing by herd was initiated by both Colorado and California months ago. Surveillance was instrumental in reducing the rate of infection in Colorado that suffered extensive losses among poultry flocks attributed to spillover from dairy farms.  The situation in California is more complicated with an increasing incidence among dairy herds, especially in the Central Valley, a region of intensive production.

USDA-APHIS maintains that the Agency has “taken significant steps to better understand and control the viruses spread.”  This self-adulatory comment is questioned given that individual states have taken the initiative to implement surveillance programs six months before the current Federal directive.  It is acknowledged that in April, USDA issued a federal order requiring milk testing to be conducted before movement of lactating cows from affected herds across state lines.  This did nothing to prevent transmission of infection within state nor did it establish quarantines that would have prevented interstate movement of heifers nor movement of affected culled cows to processing facilities with the potential for dissemination of the virus.

It is indeed fortunate that pasteurization destroys H5N1 virus in milk and thorough cooking of meat from infected animals will prevent foodborne transmission of the virus.  It is recognized that USDA-APHIS limited authority on policy and regulations relating to prevention of disease within states, but leadership both from a scientific and regulatory perspective has been soundly lacking.

In a statement accompanying the release of the Federal order, Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack stated, “This will give farmers and farm workers better confidence in the safety of the animals and ability to protect themselves and it will put us on a path to quickly controlling and stopping the viruses spread nationwide.”  Again too-little-to-late.

Dr. David A. Kessler warned of the need to effectively control avian influenza before mutations allow the virus to become zoonotic on an extensive scale or even to become contagious.  Writing in the New York Times, Kessler noted the failure of APHIS to control HPAI in poultry flocks, the alarming incidence rate in dairy herds and emergence of seasonal avian influenza in migratory marine birds and waterfowl in Asia, Africa, Australasia and Europe.

Dr. Kessler has earned impressive credentials both a physician and lawyer. He was the Commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration during the George H. W. Bush and Clinton Administrations and was scientific advisor to the Biden Administration during COVID 19.  He has served as the Dean of medical schools at Yale and the University of California, San Francisco where he now serves as a professor.

To date there have been less than 60 cases of H5N1 in humans, contracted from exposure to infected poultry flocks during depopulation and among workers on dairy farms exposed to contaminated milk. 

Extension of H5N1 from poultry to humans was first documented in 1997 in Hong Kong resulting in 18 infections with six fatalities. Extensive endemic H5N1 infection in Asia commenced in 2003 with seasonal outbreaks in poultry flocks on five continents since this time with serious epornitics in the U.S. in 2015 and ongoing from 2022.

Dr. Kessler warned of consumption of non-pasteurized milk and the need for structured surveillance of dairy herds. This is in effect in California and Colorado and is soon to be implemented in Pennsylvania.  Detection of infection in dairy herds should obviously be followed by quarantine including an embargo on movement of all animals from an affected herd for the duration of viral shedding.  It is axiomatic that necessary PPE should be supplied and correctly used to prevent human infection, Although symptoms of infection in exposed workers are mild, contracting H5N1 adapted to mammals may result in recombinant events or viral mutation to become more pathogenic in humans.

The list of APHIS-confirmed outbreaks of avian influenza in egg production, turkey and broiler flocks during November attest to the inadequacy of a “stamping-out” program based on the false premise that HPAI is an exotic disease.  The rapidly increasing incidence rate among flocks in three of the North American flyways denotes that the infection is both seasonally and regionally endemic, disseminated by migratory birds and possibly now resident species.  Ongoing cases of avian influenza among large populations of domestic poultry and dairy cattle will create the potential for mutations. This reality is characterized by Dr. Kessler as “increasing the risk that the virus mutates and evolves to allow human-to-human transmission that will be hard to stop.” 

According to Dr. Kessler there is an indication from isolates obtained from human cases in Washington State that the effectiveness of oseltamivir as an antiviral therapy has declined together with demonstration of a specific mutation in a California isolate that would reduce the effectiveness of paloxavir. At this time, the U.S. would be reliant on current antivirals and supportive therapy for patients. A stockpile of 5 million doses of H5N1 vaccine approved for humans is available with the possibility of an additional 5 million.  The E.U. has imported H5N1 vaccine from the U.S., now deployed for workers in poultry and fur-farms in Finland as a precautionary measure.

Dr. Andrew Pekosz of the Department of Molecular Microbiology and Immunology at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health noted, “If we start to detect people with H5N1 with contact only with another person infected with H5N1, that will be a real danger sign.”  This would indicate contagion and raise the potential of a 1918 outbreak or even a less extreme version of the 2009 H1N1 ‘swine flu’ pandemic that claimed 250,000 lives worldwide.

Dr. Pekosz did however comment, “The good news is so far, no clear person-to-person transmission of any significant nature has been documented or detected.  This may only be a matter of time.”

The U.S. and world human populations would be best served by a change in APHIS policy allowing administration of available vaccines for egg production, breeder and turkey flocks in high-risk areas. Avian influenza is more than a bird problem. At present it is a potential human problem transcending the narrow issues of restriction on export of broiler parts.

Previous articles on this topic posted on EGG-NEWS can be retrieved by entering ‘avian influenza’ and ‘HPAI’ in the SEARCH block).

The domestic U.S. prices of corn and soybeans are in large measure determined by export volume in relation to demand and availability. For the 2014 crop USDA project 38 percent of soybeans and 14 percent of corn will be exported. Policy decisions following the 2024 general election and fiscal legislation to be passed by the 119^th Congress will determine future prices of corn and soybeans, given relatively constant volumes of production through 2026.  The change in Administration will witness the imposition of tariffs on our USMCA neighbors and the People’s Republic of China based on pre-election promises and subsequent statements.  This will inevitably result in countervailing tariffs by exporters to the U.S. placing commodity exports at a disadvantage to other suppliers.  

During the first term of President Trump, a spokesperson for the American Soybean Association optimistically stated that if China reduced imports from the U.S., it would obtain supplies from other producing nations, creating equivalent export opportunities for the U.S.  This self-serving presumption was based on finite world production and constant demand. The statement ignored the reality that Brazil has been able to vastly increase soybean production albeit through deforestation of the Amazon Rainforest.

In 2023, it is estimated that Brazil supplied China with close to 70 million metric tons of soybeans compared to approximately 22 million tons from the U.S.  During 2022, exports from Brazil increased by 12 million metric tons to the disadvantage of the U.S.

In 2018, China imposed a reciprocal 25 percent duty on U.S. farm products, impacting the considerable reliance of China on the U.S for 40 percent of their soybean imports.  This proportion has declined to 18 percent with Brazil supplying the difference. Despite the signing of the Phase 1 Trade Agreement, China has reduced both total pork production and concurrently has restricted inclusion of soybean meal in hog diets.  Policymakers in China recognized their dependence on soybean imports to maintain a supply of pork, the major animal protein.  China increased domestic production of soybeans to 20 million metric tons in 2024 and is making greater use of locally manufactured synthetic amino acids in hog diets.

Events in Brazil during mid-January point to the future dependence of China on Brazil to the exclusion of the U.S.  President Xi Jinping attended the G-20 Leaders’ Summit in Rio de Janeiro on November 18^th and 19^th.  Subsequently he traveled to the nation’s capital, Brasilia, and met at length with President Luiz Inacio ‘Lula’ da Silva and his top officials to negotiate and conclude 37 trade agreements.  These included the purchase of soybeans and fruit, and exports of electrical vehicles and batteries and to obtain satellite technology establishing a relationship between SpaceSail of China and Telebras of Brazil.

Brazil and China will pay for each other’s purchases in their respective currencies, eliminating the U.S. dollar.  Attempting to coerce nations to continue using the dollar as suggested by the incoming Administration through imposing punitive tariffs will be unsuccessful and will have severe and lasting consequences.

A trade war with China and even with our USMCA neighbors as recently suggested will result in a sharp decline in exports of soybeans and corn with a resulting depression in domestic prices. It is doubtful whether the U.S. could establish new markets at prices that would compensate for the loss of China and Mexico as major importers.

Domestic poultry and hog producers would benefit from lower prices but would forego exports to China and possibly USMCA neighbors.  This reality together with predictions of CME prices below cost of production has delayed passage of the 2023 Farm Bill. A major stumbling block has been the revision of price supports for agricultural commodities.  If farmers are to be compensated for losses that arise as a result of geopolitical decisions by the Administration, it will represent a detrimental increase in the national debt. Effectively, consumers and their succeeding generations will bear the cost of a misguided trade and tariff policy.