US egg prices boil over as avian flu and feed costs hit supplies

Egg prices in the US soared in 2022 and prices in December were nearly three times higher than a year before on an inflation adjusted basis.

Supply was constrained because of the spread of highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) among hens.

This has led to a loss of more than 40mn egg-laying hens, reducing domestic supplies of eggs by roughly 7.5 per cent per month on average, according to the US Department of Agriculture.

Rising input costs have also contributed to the increase in prices, in particular the soaring cost of energy and feed last year as a result of the war in Ukraine and the global economic recovery since Covid lockdowns.

Shotaro Tani

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China’s trade with Russia hit a record high of $190bn in 2022 as Beijing became Moscow’s main trading partner.

Trade between the two nations was up more than 30 per cent on 2021 according to the Chinese government.

This came as Russian trade with the EU contracted sharply after western nations imposed sanctions in response to Vladimir Putin’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February.

The sanctions have contributed to redrawing the global trade map as Russia tries to cushion the impact of sanctions by selling more in other markets, while China and other countries such as India step in to purchase cheap energy.

Sam Joiner and Chris Campbell

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Independents are the largest political group in the US. They began to outnumber Republicans and Democrats in the 1990s. Their scale dropped in the early 2000s but the share of independents rose to more than 40 per cent in all but the 2016 and 2020 election years.

According to the Pew Research Center, the level reached in recent years represents the highest percentage of independents since public opinion polling started in 1939.

Members of Generation X and millennials continue to identify as independents as they age, according to Gallup analysis. Previously, US adults tended to gravitate more towards either the Republican or Democratic parties as they got older.

Federica Cocco