WASHINGTON — The Agriculture Department on Wednesday said it will spend $1 billion to tackle the bird flu in a campaign to address soaring egg prices that appears, in a departure for the administration, to acknowledge the importance of imports to keep prices down.

The USDA said it will use the Commodity Credit Corporation to provide the funding to address a virus that has sickened 138 flocks in the last 30 days. The aid will include $500 million for biosecurity measures, $400 million for economic relief to farmers and $100 million for vaccine research.

The department said its five-pronged strategy would also look at removing regulations on chicken and egg producers. The plan includes encouraging consumers to raise their own chickens and removing animal welfare regulations such as those in California that add to the cost of eggs.

“American farmers need relief, and American consumers need affordable food. To every family struggling to buy eggs: We hear you, we’re fighting for you, and help is on the way,” Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins said in a statement.

Rollins described the strategy on The Wall Street Journal op-ed page Wednesday. “We also want to make it easier for families to raise backyard chickens,” she wrote in the op-ed.

Egg prices have surged as a result of the outbreak. Retail egg prices rose nearly 14% in January 2025 and are 53% higher than in January of last year, the USDA’s Economic Research Service said in its February 2025 Food Price Outlook. It estimated that egg prices will increase by 41% in 2025.

“We are looking at temporary import-export options to lower consumer prices,” Kailee Tkacz Buller, the USDA’s chief of staff, said in a phone briefing to lay out the plan. Buller said the department is in talks with other countries.

“Turkey is already a country that we import from, and they’ve already made a commitment to give us more items than they normally have. Usually they give us about 70 million, and we’re anticipating them this year to give about 420 million,” Buller said.

The Trump administration has thus far dismissed inflation risks as the president has slapped a range of tariffs on goods or put in motion efforts to do so. But the avian flu strategy includes a recognition that more eggs, including imported ones, can keep prices down.

The USDA will not be subsidizing private purchases of eggs, Buller said.

“We really want to encourage consumers who have homegrown eggs in their backyard, we want to relinquish regulatory burdens on them, and we really want to work with Congress to potentially come up with a fix on Prop 12 as it relates to states like California who do have much higher eggs than other folks in the nation due to their their state policies,” Buller said.

California’s Proposition 12 bars the sale of eggs in the state unless the producers meet the state’s standards to house the chickens.

The USDA also said that it will partner with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to identify ways to safely expand the commercial egg market.

The five-pronged strategy also includes expanding the biosecurity assessments to address the spread of bird flu through wild birds, which the USDA says account for 83% of cases. The assessments will be conducted nationwide but will begin with egg-layer facilities.

Farmers impacted by bird flu can continue to get free biohazard audits, but nonaffected farms will now also be able to get them. The USDA said 20 epidemiologists will be part of the assessments and audits.

The department also said that it will cover 75% of the costs to fix biosecurity concerns based on the assessments and biosecurity audits.

“That is brand new. In the past, when we’ve done those assessments, we’ve provided the producer the information, but we haven’t been cost sharing with them on the corrective action,” said Rosemary Sifford, the deputy administrator veterinary services and chief veterinary officer at the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service.

The USDA said it’s exploring new programs to provide repopulation aid for farmers and will continue to indemnify farmers who had to cull their flocks. This will account for the $400 million set aside for farm aid.

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