U.S. President Donald Trump has repeatedly said that there is nothing that he needs from Canada, but the truth is the U.S. is desperate for at least one thing from other nations — eggs.
With bird flu wiping out million of egg-laying hens on American farms, the U.S. has put out feelers to far-flung nations that wouldn’t normally supply it with eggs, including Germany, Spain, France and even Denmark, despite Trump questioning the nation’s sovereignty over Greenland.
The shortage of eggs has resulted in record-high prices, and U.S. Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins, who has promised to reduce costs, is “actively exploring all options, including trade opportunities,” said a United States Department of Agriculture spokesperson in an email to the Star.
It’s not just the U.S. experiencing an outbreak of avian influenza; it’s decimating flocks in many other parts of the world, including Australia and Canada, as bird flu continues to spread from wild birds to farms, causing millions of poultry and laying hens to be culled.
From 2022 to 2024, Canada lost around 2.75 million egg-laying hens to bird flu, about eight per cent of its egg-laying population, according to Bruce Muirhead, a professor in the department of history and associate vice-president, external research, at the University of Waterloo. The U.S. lost 150 million laying hens to bird flu during the same period.
This year alone in the U.S., more than 30 million egg-laying hens have died or been culled because of avian influenza and in February, the country produced 563 million fewer eggs than it did in December of 2023. The highly pathogenic strain has been found in dairy cattle in the U.S. as well as in wild birds and animals there and in Canada. Human infections are rare but have occurred in U.S. dairy and poultry workers, as well as in two Canadians who had contact with infected birds.
Avian influenza has “become much more prevalent and insidious than it ever has been in the past,” said Muirhead.
Canada has yet to receive a request from the U.S. for shell eggs, according to Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada (AAFC). But if we did, the size of our egg industry would make it nearly impossible to fill the void.
“The American egg production industry is more than 10 times larger than Canada’s industry and their needs far exceed our production capacity,” AAFC said in an email.
Canada has about 1,200 egg farms with an average of 22,500 laying hens per farm, a “tiny” amount compared with states such as Iowa, where egg farms average two million birds, said Muirhead.
That’s why when bird flu hits a farm in the U.S., it can lead to the culling of millions of egg-laying hens to stop the spread of the virus.
Infections of avian influenza in the U.S. slowed this month, as did rising prices, but the nation continues to look for imports and has been successful in negotiating with at least one country — Turkey, which has committed to sending 15,000 tonnes of eggs to the U.S. from February through to July.
In February, a dozen large eggs cost nearly $5.90 on average in the U.S., up from an average of $1.93 U.S. in January of 2022, although egg prices have come down this month largely due to decreased demand.
Even if Canada were able to ramp up production, the country has a national supply management system that is geared to producing only enough eggs to meet domestic demand.
“Canada does not export shell eggs,” said the federal agriculture department in the email, noting the supply management system ensures “farmers earn a fair return for their work.”
In Canada, the price of eggs is negotiated between processors, graders and egg farmers, based on numerous factors including the cost of fuel to run tractors, feed, electricity, water and farm salaries, said Muirhead.
Egg processors in Canada do export eggs in other forms, such as liquid, dried or frozen, and in 2024 those exports amounted to $14 million.
That year Canada also exported 2.7 million dozens of shell eggs from species other than chickens into the U.S., according to Statistics Canada data provided by Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada.
“That’s sort of the payoff in a sense,” said Muirhead, “where we can’t participate in an international market if we’re going to favour domestic producers for domestic commodities.”
However, the free-trade agreement among Canada, the U.S. and Mexico, called CUSMA, allows the U.S. access to about six per cent of the Canadian egg market, including fresh eggs.
In 2024, the U.S. exported nearly $235 million in egg products to Canada, including $144 million worth of shell eggs, which translates to 60.7 million dozen, according to data provided to the Star by the Foreign Agricultural Service, part of the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
And even with bird flu decimating farms this year, the U.S. sent $35 million worth of shell eggs to Canada in January this year.
Canadian egg farmers have fared better than their U.S. counterparts because of their relatively small size, a result of the country’s supply management model, which was adopted in the early ‘70s. Around the same time, the U.S. opted for an agribusiness model in order to produce cheaper food on a massive scale, said Muirhead.
There were 856 million dozen eggs produced in Canada in 2024, according to Egg Farmers of Canada.
But bird flu has still managed to result in shortages here, as it did over the holidays in B.C., because of an increased demand for eggs for baking as well as avian influenza, which has resulted in the culling of 8.7 million chickens — poultry and egg-laying hens — in the province since 2022.
Muirhead said Alberta is shipping eggs to B.C. because Canada has no interprovincial barriers on egg imports.
“If one of our farms is hit, it’s horrible for the farmer. It’s clearly horrible for the hens as well when they’re hit with avian influenza,” said Muirhead. But for the egg industry as a whole, “it’s not a crippling blow.”
