How Is Bird Flu Impacting Agriculture and Food Security in the United States

Critical Questions by Caitlin Welsh and Zane Swanson

Published April 17, 2025

Policymakers frame U.S. food security in terms of the strength of the U.S. agriculture sector and the food security and nutrition status of Americans. The H5N1 subtype of highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI), or bird flu, has caused unprecedented damage to poultry flocks in the United States and contributed to record-high egg prices. A mutation of the virus has also infected dairy cattle, threatening significant losses to the dairy industry and increased milk prices, while also portending greater risk to human health. How is HPAI affecting agriculture in the United States, how could it affect food security and nutrition among U.S. citizens, and what more needs to be done to address it?

Q1: How has HPAI affected poultry and dairy farms in the United States?

A1: The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) Animal and Plant Health Information Service (APHIS) detected H5N1 in commercial poultry in February 2022. In just over three years since its detection, the virus has affected over 168 million birds in all 50 states and Puerto Rico. By 2023, APHIS had already declared the current outbreak of HPAI to be the "largest and longest outbreak in the history of the United States." The previous record-breaking outbreak of HPAI, in 2014-2015, lasted less than seven months and affected 50.5 million birds.

Since 2022, APHIS has detected H5N1 in more than 200 mammals, including, as of March 2024, dairy cattle, marking the first recorded detection of H5N1 in cows. To date, 1,020 dairy herds in 17 states have been affected with HPAI. The USDA considered the 2014-2015 outbreak of avian influenza the "most serious animal health disease incident" in U.S. history. The transmission of H5N1 to dairy cattle, scale of animals affected and losses to farms, and effects on food prices render the full impacts of the current H5N1 outbreak substantially greater than the outbreak of 2014-2015.

Costs associated with the ongoing H5N1 outbreak were more than $1.4 billion by late 2024, according to the American Veterinary Medical Association (AVMA), including compensation, indemnity, and other payments to farmers. There is no treatment for HPAI and, according to APHIS, the only way to curtail the virus is to "depopulate all affected and exposed poultry." To encourage farmers to promptly report signs of potential infection, the USDA compensates farmers for the loss of birds that the USDA itself kills, not for the loss of birds that die prior to USDA inspection. Some poultry farmers incur formidable costs despite USDA support. For example, one Illinois family lost the entirety of its 3,000-hen farm to H5N1 in early 2025; because most of its flock was dead upon the USDA's arrival, the family is reported to have received only $2,500 in compensation for the remaining hens that the USDA culled, representing a small fraction of the $100,000 revenue the farm expected from the chickens' eggs. HPAI can be particularly difficult for farmers to detect early, as the first sign of flock exposure is sudden, unexplained death, while the mortality rate among infected chickens is nearly 100 percent within less than 48 hours.

Despite a low mortality rate of about 2 percent for dairy cattle infected with H5N1, symptoms of reduced and abnormal milk production can have serious financial impacts. In May 2024, the USDA announced multiple financial assistance programs to support dairy farmers with H5N1-affected herds, including compensation for a portion of lost milk production. Early research points to significant financial consequences of HPAI infection to dairy cattle: One study estimated HPAI-related economic losses at $950 per affected cow in an Ohio herd, including from lost milk production, for a total loss of $737,500 for the herd during the observation period.

Other costs associated with HPAI include costs of biosecurity planning and implementation, collection and testing of samples for H5N1 infection, and personal protective equipment for farm workers. Beyond costs to operations, farmers risk illness from the virus. To date, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has reported 70 cases of human sickness and one death from H5N1. At greater risk of infection are "[p]eople with close or prolonged, unprotected exposure to infected animals or their environments," according to AVMA. Complicating identification and treatment of H5N1 in farmers is the fact that farmworkers often face increased barriers to accessing healthcare, which may contribute to the underreporting of human infection. Increasing political anxiety among immigrant populations-who make up a disproportionate number of poultry and dairy farmworkers-creates additional public health vulnerabilities.

Q2: How could avian influenza affect food security in the United States?

A2: HPAI has contributed to a reduction in egg-layer flocks and the subsequent supply of eggs, a usually affordable source of macronutrients and micronutrients with numerous health benefits. According to the USDA, retail egg prices increased by 8.4 percent in December 2024, 13.8 percent in January 2025, and 12.5 percent in February 2025. In March 2025, the retail price of eggs was 60.4 percent higher than March 2024, and across 2025, retail egg prices are expected to increase 57.6 percent over the year prior. February's spike in egg prices followed the culling of 41.4 million birds infected with or exposed to HPAI in December 2024 and January 2025, marking the most lethal two-month period in the current HPAI outbreak. Detection of HPAI in egg-laying chickens eased in March.

Unlike eggs, the price of dairy has been relatively insulated from HPAI. Dairy prices in March 2025 were 2.2 percent higher than March 2024 and are expected to be down 0.8 percent across 2025 compared to 2024. Still, unexpected increases in HPAI infection could have negative consequences for the U.S. dairy industry, including higher production costs and reduced milk output, resulting in higher retail prices for milk.

Food security among Americans-defined by the USDA as access to enough food for an active, healthy life-is generally a function of poverty and the inability to access nutritious food. According to the USDA Economic Research Service (ERS), food insecurity is rising among U.S. households. In 2022, economic shocks related to Russia's invasion of Ukraine, coupled with lingering Covid-era economic shocks, pushed food prices up 9.9 percent, faster than any year since 1979. These macroeconomic shocks, coupled with the expiration of pandemic-era financial support, ultimately increased food insecurity among U.S. households between 2021 and 2022 and again between 2022 and 2023. As of 2023, food insecurity is at the highest level in approximately nine years, with 13.5 percent of U.S. households experiencing low and very low food security.

Today, food prices have eased from their peak in 2022. Still, HPAI is putting upward pressure on eggs and dairy in a context of rising food prices: Grocery store prices rose 0.5 percent in March, driven largely by the increase in egg prices, after remaining stable in February 2025. Among food-insecure families, higher food prices could be buffered by higher wages and food-security supports, like the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) and the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children. Amid historic disruptions to the global and U.S. economy, U.S. policymakers expect increased inflation in the United States, likely including food-price increases, while the likelihood of increased wages is low and threats to SNAP and related programs loom.

Subsequent USDA ERS reports will indicate whether food insecurity increased in 2024 and 2025 compared to 2023. Regardless of the long-term impacts of HPAI on household-level food security, the virus is having short-term impacts on families' abilities to access a heretofore affordable source of nutrition.

Q3: How is the U.S. government responding?

A3: In February 2025, USDA Secretary Brooke Rollins announced up to $1 billion of funding and a five-part plan to curb the avian influenza crisis and reduce egg prices. Recognizing that there is "no silver bullet to eradicating avian flu," the plan includes up to $500 million to help farmers improve on-farm biosecurity measures, up to $400 million for financial relief for farmers whose flocks have been affected by H5N1, up to $100 million for research and development of vaccines and therapeutics, and steps to lower the price of eggs, including bypassing state-level regulations potentially inhibiting egg production and exploring temporary options to import eggs from other countries.

Secretary Rollins provided updates on progress toward this plan in March 2025:

• As of March 20, the USDA is expanding biosecurity assessments, including two offered at no cost to farmers, with the USDA reimbursing the majority of costs of biosecurity improvements.
• As of February 2025, the USDA had increased compensation to $16.94 per egg-laying bird.
• The USDA is exploring ways to "reduce the extent of depopulations while maintaining food safety standards."
• The USDA has launched a $100 million funding opportunity, in cooperation with the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), the CDC, the National Institutes of Health (NIH), and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), to support research into HPAI prevention, therapeutics, and vaccines.
• The USDA has secured "egg import commitments" from Turkey, South Korea, and potentially other countries.

And in early April 2025, APHIS also announced the award of $15.3 million for 68 new projects to "enhance prevention, preparedness, early detection, and rapid response to the most damaging diseases that threaten U.S. livestock."

At the same time, the success of the USDA plan may be limited due to several factors.

First, the plan has received bipartisan criticism for focusing uniquely on chickens and not on other birds affected by the virus, or on dairy cattle. On April 9, Republican and Democratic senators, including members of the Senate Agriculture Committee, encouraged the USDA plan "to include turkeys and dairy cows" in order to make "any biosecurity and vaccine measures . . . available to all livestock producers."

Second, termination of U.S. funding for efforts to stem HPAI in other countries, including for the UN Food and Agriculture Organization's Global Health Security Program, could undermine domestic efforts to stem the virus at home. Among the cuts is a program surveilling avian flu in the Atlantic migratory corridor, including El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras. Failing to detect cases of H5N1 among birds that migrate to the United States could further threaten the U.S. poultry industry.

Finally, layoffs across the federal government may limit USDA collaboration with other agencies on HPAI prevention, therapeutics, and vaccines. For example, among the 10,000 staff layoffs at the HHS are staff of the FDA's Center for Veterinary Medicine and its Veterinary Laboratory Investigation and Response Network, part of FDA's H5N1 testing infrastructure. HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s layoffs of leadership and staff across the NIH and the CDC could hamper response to avian influenza under the USDA's recently announced plan.

Apart from USDA and HHS efforts to stem H5N1-alongside other administration actions that could threaten to undermine the USDA's efforts-the Department of Justice is investigating potentially anticompetitive conduct among the nation's largest egg producers, some of which saw rising profits and stock prices amid the ongoing HPAI crisis.

Q4: What's on the horizon?

A4: High food prices can contribute to political discontent around the world. In the United States, high food prices and pledges to reduce them were important factors in 2024 election outcomes. Egg prices may rise around the time of publication of this analysis: Easter eggs are ubiquitous in Easter baskets, and eggs are a traditional element of Passover seders. Numerous political, macroeconomic, and biological factors could contribute to continually elevated egg prices, which, as a symbol of food-price inflation, could remain politically salient throughout 2025.

The H5N1 virus continues to mutate. New strains were detected in dairy cattle in the United States in February and March 2025. Studies released this year indicate increased resistance of H5N1 to therapeutics and increased transmission across flocks, including one case in which a mutated virus jumped across 44 farms in only 27 days. The spring migration of wild birds brings with it an increased threat of H5N1 outbreaks along the four North American flyways as well.

Any ultimately successful U.S. approach to containing the H5N1 virus must necessarily target other animal species beyond poultry and must be carried out in collaboration with other countries. A U.S. government response solely focused on lowering the price of eggs in the United States may risk further outbreaks of the virus in other species and in other countries-with continued consequences for U.S. agriculture and U.S. food prices.

Caitlin Welsh is the director of the Global Food and Water Security Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) in Washington, D.C. Zane Swanson is deputy director of the Global Food and Water Security Program at CSIS.

Programs & Projects