This 12 months’s Thanksgiving turkey dinner will price significantly extra, as an intensifying fowl flu outbreak threatens poultry populations and turkey availability nationwide.
Estimates, together with one from Bernt Nelson, an economist with the American Farm Bureau Federation who spoke to The New York Instances, recommend turkey costs could surge 40%. A report by Purdue’s School of Agriculture reveals wholesale turkey costs at $1.71 per pound, up a staggering 75% from Oct. 2024.
Business watchdog Farm Ahead offered CNET with information illustrating the severity of the scenario. Round 3 million turkeys have perished from Extremely Pathogenic Avian Influenza, or HPAI, thus far this 12 months. That determine already exceeds the overall fowl flu fatalities in 2024 (1.25 million), though it stays nicely under the devastating 2022 outbreak, which claimed over 9 million birds.
Authorities statistics present this loss — accounting for roughly 1.45% of the nation’s complete turkey inhabitants — is pushing wholesale turkey costs up greater than 26% in comparison with this time final 12 months.
As Axios reported, the US turkey flock has dropped to its lowest stage in 4 a long time. The USDA initiatives simply 4.8 billion kilos of manufacturing, representing a 5% decline from 2024.
An accelerating outbreak
A microbiologist assessments poultry samples for the presence of fowl flu.
The unfold of HPAI has accelerated dramatically in latest months, simply forward of the crucial vacation season:
- 110 particular person outbreaks have occurred on business turkey farms in 2025.
- The outbreak is intensifying: 34 business turkey flocks have been affected since Aug. 2025, with 21 flocks hit in Sept. alone and 15 already in Oct.
- Minnesota leads the nation in losses, with 962,300 turkeys culled.
- Ohio has skilled the best variety of outbreaks, with 41 particular person farms affected (leading to 511,400 turkey deaths).
Federal coverage below scrutiny
Whereas the rapid disaster impacts customers’ wallets, Farm Ahead argues that long-standing federal insurance policies, maintained throughout a number of administrations, have enabled circumstances conducive to the large and protracted unfold of HPAI.
The group contends that the federal authorities and poultry trade have prioritized earnings over public well being by permitting the operation of crowded concentrated animal feeding amenities, resisting obligatory HPAI testing protocols and declining to implement vaccination packages for poultry, regardless of their effectiveness in different international locations.