Warning over price of eggs after bird flu outbreak

Egg producers are warning the cost of eggs is set to rise as the state battles an ongoing outbreak of bird flu. An eighth Victorian farm is confirmed to have been impacted. The small egg producer in the Golden Plains Shire was already in quarantine. Now the State Government has taken mobile command centres to the farming frontline. This means information can get from an emergency site back to the local command centre and information flows so much quicker. The two new mobile incident control centres have been set up. Security experts are on hand and on site as part of the emergency response, many egg producers and poultry farms forced into quarantine. We're actively seeking out disease in that area by means of testing in order to be able to remove any infection as quickly as possible. Around 1.2 million birds have had to be destroyed, which means there is a huge impact on supply. At some ALDI stores, shelves are bare, while Coles have introduced buying limits down to two dozen per customer. So if a farm is suspected of having an AI outbreak or they might be testing, those eggs will never make the shells either so safe to eat. So all those extra measures that farmers are taking now gets added to the cost on top of the fact that you have the basic supply and demand which dictates price. Producers say this outbreak is expected to get worse and that it could take the industry years to recover.