Bird flu costs pile up as outbreak enters second year
Associated Press— The ongoing bird flu outbreak has cost the government roughly $661 million and added to consumers’ pain at the grocery store after more than 58 million birds were slaughtered to limit the spread of the virus. The outbreak is already more widespread than the last major bird flu outbreak in 2015, but it hasn’t proven as costly yet partly because the government and industry applied lessons learned eight years ago. “The past year has been devastating for the turkey industry as we experience, unequivocally, the worst HPAI outbreak in the industry’s history,” National Turkey Federation spokeswoman Shelby Newman said. The Bureau of Labor Statistics doesn’t track retail turkey prices the same way as part of its inflation data, but the Agriculture Department says the wholesale price of turkey went from $1.29 per pound last January just before the bird flu outbreak began to $1.72 per pound last month.