US Agriculture Secretary says it's 'awesome' more Americans are rearing chickens amid high egg prices

More Americans are looking into rearing chickens in their backyard to tackle rising egg prices, said the United States (U.S.) Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins.

"People are sort of looking around like, 'maybe I could get a chicken in my backyard,' and it's awesome," said Rollins in a televised interview with Fox & Friends Weekend on Mar. 2.

Addressing the price of eggs

During the interview, Rollins discussed what the Department of Agriculture (USDA) was doing to address the price of eggs.

The department had earlier warned that Americans could see the price of eggs spike more than 40 per cent.

One of the reasons for the price hike was avian bird flu, which required almost 160 million birds to be depopulated.

Rollins said that in order to address the issue, USDA had repurposed funds to be used for biosecurity, which is "locking the barns down", among other things.

Other initiatives include rolling back on restrictive regulations on chicken farmers and cutting a deal with countries around the world, such as Egypt, to get eggs immediately on the shelves.

"There is no short-term fix... but we are on it, and we're working night and day to solve it," said Rollins.

Keeping chicken in the backyard

Rachel Campos-Duffy, co-host of Fox & Friends Weekend, then brought up the idea of small farms and said that she had just successfully harvested five eggs from the chickens she kept in her backyard.

"Is part of the solution more small farms?" she asked.

Rollins, who also has chickens in her backyard, agrees.

In an opinion piece published on Feb. 26 by Washington Journal, Rollins said that the USDA "want[s] to make it easier for families to raise backyard chickens".

However, this is more difficult for those living in more urbanised areas and cities.

Not the first time

This is not the first time a minister has encouraged the public to tackle the rising prices of goods by taking matters into their own hands.

Just last month, Indonesian Minister of Home Affairs Tito Karvanian invited the public to plant their own chillies in anticipation of rising commodity prices during the Ramadan period, the fasting month for Muslim communities.

Top image via @SecRollins/X and Canva