Easter tradition no longer a major driver for selling eggs
demand for eggs is around Christmas. At Easter time, he said, “those plastic eggs kind of rule theworld.” What is different this year is anoutbreak of avian influenza across at least 24 states, thoughithasnotbeendetectedinCalifornia. The highly pathogenic virus has affected commercial andbackyard flocks, resulting in the loss of more than 24million birds as of lastweek.Thathas ledtoshortersupplies of eggsnationwide, drivingupeggprices. The higher market price is needed, Hilliker said, because the cost to produce
eggs has soared. He noted the price of chicken feedhasdoubled fromwhat itwas two years ago. He’s also paying 25%more for packaging, 40%more for fuel and 10% to 15%more for labor. Hilliker saidheexpectseggpriceswill re- mainhigheruntil farmsaffectedbyavianin- fluenza repopulate their barns. Thoughhe is earningmore forhis eggs, he said the rise inprices has alsobegun to slowdemand. “With these higher prices, orders are down,” he said. “(Customers are) saying,
ByChing Lee The Easter egg hunt may still be a tradi- tionthis timeof year, but eggproducers say sales of their product around the holiday aren’t what they’re cracked up to be. “It might push demand up a touch, but Easter ismoreof achocolateholiday,” said Marty Zaritsky, an egg producer and dis- tributor in SanBernardinoCounty. Even though some people still dye eggs forEaster, hesaidThanksgiving,Christmas andNewYear’s remain themost lucrative Klamath farmers facing water cuts Food production along the California- Oregon border will likely be significantly curtailedafter the federal government an- nouncedMonday that it intends toallocate 50,000acre-feet ofwater toKlamathBasin irrigators this year. U.S.BureauofReclamation,whichman- ages the federal Klamath Water Project, released a temporary operations plan for the 2022water year, inwhich the Klamath WaterUsersAssociationsaidtheallocation is less than 15% of what irrigators need. The announcement comes amid a third consecutive year of drought and follows a zero allocation for the basin last year. “On a single acre, we can produce over 50,000poundsof potatoesor 6,000pounds ofwheat.Thisyear,mostof that landwillnot produceany foodbecause thegovernment isdenyingwater for irrigation,”saidTulelake farmerBenDuVal,presidentof theKlamath WaterUsersAssociation, which represents KlamathWater Project irrigators. Thebureauannounced thatwater from Upper Klamath Lake will be dedicated to fish species based on regulatory guide- lines put in place by the National Marine FisheriesServiceandU.S. FishandWildlife Service. NMFS has authority related to coho salmon, considered a threatened speciesunder theEndangeredSpeciesAct. USFWS has authority related to Lost River suckers andshortnose suckers, both listed as endangered under the ESA. “Federal agencies’ experiment of in- creasing water allocation to these ESA- listed species has been tried for 25 years in the Klamath Basin,” the KlamathWater UsersAssociationsaid ina statement. “Yet there is no evidence this policy has bene- fited the target fish populations.” Meanwhile, DuVal said, “If we farmers failedas badly as the federal agencybiolo- gists who are controllingwater policy, our bankers would have foreclosed on us 20 years ago.” He said, “The regulators’ per- formance is unacceptable and should be embarrassing to federal decisionmakers.” The bureau announced $20 million is available to helpmitigate economic dam- agetofarms thatdonotuse irrigationwater this year. But the KWUA said the funding can’t replace the loss of food production, jobs and community impacts resulting from federal watermanagement policies.
holidays for egg sales, as that’s when peo- ple are baking and cookingmore. San Diego County egg farmer Frank Hilliker said he continues to see “a nice little bump” in sales aweek before Easter as stores stock their shelves with eggs, but the holiday is not the huge driver it was 30 years ago. He says his highest
See EGGS, Page 16
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