Eggs and staples becoming more expensive Is bird flu alone behind this?

Why is food becoming so expensive? Food prices are rising sharply, with eggs being a prime example. In the UK, egg prices have surged nearly 20% since the beginning of the year, with a six-pack increasing by almost 20% in just over a month. This is particularly tough for lower-income households, as they spend a larger share of their earnings on groceries.

For most of the 20th century, food became steadily cheaper thanks to new technologies. An article by the British UnHerd publication has dived into the egg supply problems and studied the root causes, pointing out that by 2020 the price of eggs had been reduced to just one-third of their 1920 price.

However, food inflation is now a major concern in many regions in the West therefore a political hot button issue in both the UK and US. Nine out of ten American voters expressed concerns about food inflation in the 2024 elections. Despite Trump's promise to lower costs, egg prices have surged, leading officials like Agricultural Secretary Brooke Rollins to suggest that Americans should raise their own chickens in the backyard-an indication of how dire the situation has become. This highlights growing frustration, especially among rural communities as urban liberals often overlook farming issues.

A major cause of the current price spike is highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI), a bird flu virus that has devastated poultry farms worldwide. The virus spreads when domesticated hens come into contact with wild birds, their droppings, or carcasses. In densely packed industrial farms, the infection spreads rapidly, often requiring mass culling of birds.

Since December 2024, over 47 million American hens and 1.8 million UK farm birds have been slaughtered to contain outbreaks. One Shropshire farm alone lost over one million birds. With fewer hens laying eggs, supply has dropped, driving up costs.

However, avian flu is not the sole reason for rising food prices—many other staples are also becoming more expensive. The larger issue is that the era of ever-cheaper food may be coming to an end.

Limits of food production growth

As populations grow and become wealthier, demand for food rises. Yet, there is only so much land available for agriculture, and expanding farmland by clearing forests is no longer considered environmentally acceptable.

Farmers have continuously increased food production using innovations like the Haber-Bosch process and selective breeding, making UK farming 30% more productive since 1990. However, these methods are becoming less effective, as industrial fertilisers degrade soil quality, reducing grain yields and increasing costs. As a result, higher feed prices drive up the cost of essentials like eggs.

Another challenge is land scarcity. In addition to farming, land is needed for housing developments (nearly 300,000 homes have been built on 8,000 acres of prime UK farmland), solar farms and rewilding projects, biofuel production and other purposes. This competition for land raises its value and cost, indirectly increasing food prices. Since 2010, the UK has lost 14,500 hectares of farmland, enough to produce 250,000 tonnes of vegetables annually.

Risks of industrialized food supply chains

The egg crisis is part of a broader agricultural problem. While industrial farms created historically cheap food, the authors argue that this also made supply chains highly vulnerable to disruptions like disease outbreaks. Additionally, market concentration has allowed a handful of corporations to dominate entire farming sectors. This raises concerns about anti-competitive behavior, monopolies controlling supply chains and "price gouging", where companies manipulate scarcity to drive up prices. There is growing suspicion in the US that some companies are deliberately restricting chick production for laying farms to inflate prices.

Political implications and the cost-of-living crisis

According to the article, the British government has struggled to address rising food costs which worsened the broader cost-of-living crisis. Food price inflation is a key factor behind the UK’s 3% inflation rate in January. Without intervention, the government may struggle to maintain public support for Net Zero policies and other expensive programs. In the US, food inflation has driven rural voters toward populist politicians, and a similar trend could emerge in the UK. The key challenge is ensuring people can afford food at its true cost.

Countries like Norway tackle food affordability through wealth redistribution. The UK currently relies on cheap food to mask poverty, but this system depends on subsidized farming and ongoing technological progress, both of which are now slowing. The article puts forward that the best long-term solution is higher wages. Creating more well-paying jobs would ensure that people can still afford essential groceries, even as food prices rise. Without serious reforms, food inflation will continue to be a major economic and political issue.

By Nazrin Sadigova