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Eggs US – Price – Chart

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Re: Eggs US – Price – Chart

#261

Post by tsimionescu »

silisili wrote: post #228
mplanchard wrote: post #18

Fresh, local eggs have remained around the same price here. While more expensive than eggs from large producers in normal times, they are now often cheaper. This is a great reminder of how important it is to support local farmers and small operations, which increase the resilience of the system as a whole.

My local sellers are $4/doz for the good ones, $5/18 from another seller whose eggs taste 'off' so I quit buying them. I think $4/doz for quality eggs is worth it. This is also hopefully a catalyst to get people to petition their city for backyard chicken rights. Raising chickens is relatively easy and can be rewarding. Even if you don't want to personally, support the right of those around you to, please.

Generally, mixing livestock and people in the confined conditions of a city is a very bad idea (if you're talking about suburbs, then that's a completely different thing, and I would agree with you about supporting it).

Re: Eggs US – Price – Chart

#263

Post by boothby »

uticus wrote: post #145
bluedino wrote: post #118

Michigan here, this is has been made worse by a new law requiring all eggs to be 'cage-free'. I think I paid $9 for the cheap store-brand eggs (18) last week. And that is, if they even have any eggs at the store. I've been to Wal-mart and Kroger when the entire section is empty with a sign saying there are egg supply issues. It's also winter so my 'chicken farmer friends' are low on eggs, when it's cold the chickens…

seems such laws would benefit the prices in neighboring areas, as 'non-cage-free' producers seek available markets. but i have not seen this to be the case, strangely.

Monopolies have no incentive to lower prices.

Re: Eggs US – Price – Chart

#264

Post by mplanchard »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #237
mplanchard wrote: post #18

Fresh, local eggs have remained around the same price here. While more expensive than eggs from large producers in normal times, they are now often cheaper. This is a great reminder of how important it is to support local farmers and small operations, which increase the resilience of the system as a whole.

Canadian and Mexican egg prices haven’t budged because they vaccinate their chickens [1]. I’m not a fan of factory farming. But this isn’t a story about that. It’s a story about American (a) producers favouring cheap production by avoiding the cost of vaccination and (b) regulators favouring a policy of trade protectionism that keeps our neighbours’ cheap eggs off our grocery-store shelves. [1] https://www.slowboring…

I think both causes can be true, and both are relevant to modern food production.

Re: Eggs US – Price – Chart

#265

Post by Chabsff »

epistasis wrote: post #241
SketchySeaBeast wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Really raises the question - should vital infrastructure, like food production, be built in an attempt to maximize profit or resiliency? Have things swung too far in one direction?

> built in an attempt to maximize profit or resiliency I think framing it as an either/or is a bit of a mental trap. They are sometimes in opposition, sometimes not. For example, those farms which were not resilient are not maximizing their profits, since they've had more than a year of warning of avian flu. They were operating to minimize work and costs, not maximize profit, and they are losing out on a ton of it ri…

The issue with that reasoning is that it fails to take into account that risk is a commodity now. It's often more profitable to go for short term profit and offload your risk to an insurer who amortizes that monetary risk in a pool containing a bunch of other industries.

For critical services like food production, that's a problem. "Well, we don't have food, but it's okay because screw production went well" doesn't make sense socially, but our system makes it so monetarily.

Re: Eggs US – Price – Chart

#266

Post by hwillis »

jl6 wrote: post #172
mplanchard wrote: post #18

Fresh, local eggs have remained around the same price here. While more expensive than eggs from large producers in normal times, they are now often cheaper. This is a great reminder of how important it is to support local farmers and small operations, which increase the resilience of the system as a whole.

Are small local farms able to keep producing as normal because the birds aren’t getting bird flu or because they’re not testing/killing them?

Bird flu has 95% lethality in chickens and takes ~48 hours to kill. It's not like they can get away with ignoring it. Testing happens when you wake up and half your birds are already dead.

That said OP is asserting local costs haven't changed without evidence. Even if that were true (and I don't think it is- local farms are also being hit hard eg duck farming in NY) it probably speaks far more to small operations having a harder time changing their prices. Or the cheap eggs are just places who haven't been hit yet.

Re: Eggs US – Price – Chart

#267

Post by rafram »

bluedino wrote: post #118

Michigan here, this is has been made worse by a new law requiring all eggs to be 'cage-free'. I think I paid $9 for the cheap store-brand eggs (18) last week. And that is, if they even have any eggs at the store. I've been to Wal-mart and Kroger when the entire section is empty with a sign saying there are egg supply issues. It's also winter so my 'chicken farmer friends' are low on eggs, when it's cold the chickens…

If it were actually impossible to have affordable eggs without confining chickens to tiny cages for their entire lives, that would be a damning indictment of our entire food system.

But luckily that isn't actually the case. The price difference between cage-free and "caged" eggs is negligible. I'm in New York City, not known for its local egg production, and I can still get cage-free eggs for $4/dozen. Kroker/Walmart is just ripping you off.

Re: Eggs US – Price – Chart

#268

Post by llamaimperative »

rcpt wrote: post #231
llamaimperative wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here are several specific proposals to do just that: https://nlihc.org/resource/harris-campaign-releases-plans-lo... Not a fan of credits to buyers (just inflates prices further) but I'm a big fan of credits to developers, streamlining permitting, and making some federal land available for development. Regardless of whether you think these are good policies or an effective platform, it is patently false to say no one…

Those are all great policies. And yes credits to buyers is pretty stupid. But this is still a far cry from "vote for me and your home value will go down".

Because why would you say that?

You would say "we're going to build more housing."

Re: Eggs US – Price – Chart

#269

Post by JumpCrisscross »

mplanchard wrote: post #264
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #237

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Canadian and Mexican egg prices haven’t budged because they vaccinate their chickens [1]. I’m not a fan of factory farming. But this isn’t a story about that. It’s a story about American (a) producers favouring cheap production by avoiding the cost of vaccination and (b) regulators favouring a policy of trade protectionism that keeps our neighbours’ cheap eggs off our grocery-store shelves. [1] https://www.slowboring…

I think both causes can be true, and both are relevant to modern food production.

> both causes can be true

They can be but they’re not. Canadian and Mexican factory farms are not being affected sufficiently to raise prices. The cause of the price rise is not factory farming. It’s vaccination practice and trade policy.

Re: Eggs US – Price – Chart

#270

Post by llm_nerd »

Scoundreller wrote: post #238
llm_nerd wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Consumer demand for eggs and milk is extremely consistent over the short term, and when the price explodes people just...pay more. Hence all of the mad rushes and bizarre hoarding behaviour for this perishable product across the US. People are just spending more of their income on eggs, and bizarrely might be buying even more than normal. Over decades people change habits but for something acute they just suck it up.…

If we wanted to be strategic about food security (and deem supply management to be the way to do it), we’d supply manage primary food energy like beans and oats. Oh, and crop inputs like fertilizer. Meat/eggs/dairy mostly destroys food energy. I guess you could argue the set pricing ensures food security for the animal.

>we’d supply manage primary food energy like beans and oats

We have enormous amounts of these crops, are hyper-competitive in them and fully self-supplying, and moreso they're very quick to turn around: A single season can yield enormous stockpiles of beans and oats.

That isn't true for dairy farms, egg operations, and so on. These don't scale up nearly as quickly. If Canada allowed the unrestricted flow of US options in these industries, US booms and mass industrial operations would wipe out Canadian suppliers, leaving us hugely vulnerable.

Like in the near future we might have an entire collapse of trade between the countries (as some new nonsensical exercise of brinksmanship is pursued, with new and ridiculous demands). We could wipe out 100% of foods that the US sends to Canada and be...perfectly fine, including, thankfully, poultry, milk and eggs. There are a lot of countries where this sort of food security independence isn't true.

Recent events have amply proven how critical Canada's protection of these industries are, making it all the more ironic that they're such a target. For obvious reasons.

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