Exclusive — Sen. Tommy Tuberville on Bird Flu and Egg Prices: ‘We Have to Protect our Farmers’

“We have to protect our farmers,” Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-AL) said during an interview on Breitbart News Daily, discussing the bird flu and the effect it is having on egg prices and farmers.

Host Mike Slater pointed to an editorial written by Department of Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins in the Wall Street Journal, where she outlined what USDA is doing to help solve the problem and, ultimately, lower the price of eggs.

“Well, first of all, we have a problem with bird flu. Now, the good thing is, we need to protect, you know, the areas that we grow chickens and have the opportunity to either have broilers or have a production of eggs,” Tuberville told Slater.

“Now it only takes like 36 days to go from an egg to a full grown chicken, so it’s not like it takes years and years to get it all back,” he said, adding some perspective.

Tuberville ultimately said there is a need for “base protection” to provide safety from “things that could cause bird flu — a few more regulations.” However, he noted that he is usually the last person asking for more regulations.

“Again, you’re talking to somebody that just hates regulations, but well, because it’s here, because of some unreasonable regulations that allowed this to happen, we need to protect the people against this, and then again, be able to protect for eggs,” he said, calling for protections of American farmers as well.

“I saw Brooke Rollins, and I’m a big fan of hers, and we’re getting ready to import hundreds and hundreds of thousands of eggs, and you know, that’s fine, but it needs to be a short period of time, because we have to protect our farmers here,” he added.

LISTEN:

Indeed, Rollins has said the USDA is “rolling out a plan that addresses the avian flu directly,” which includes importing eggs.

“We are beginning to import. I just met with Ag. Commissioner of Texas Sid Miller (R). He let me know that they are working to import some eggs from the country of Turkey. … So, there will be some slight import, I think, to immediately address the shortage,” she said in late February.

“But, eventually, we will get our arms around this,” Rollins added. “We will, hopefully, solve for the avian flu, we will get the cost of inputs down, we will lift regulations, and, ultimately, it is — again, it is not just one reason that eggs are so high — it’s a myriad of reasons that we are working to solve every day.”

Breitbart News Daily airs on SiriusXM Patriot 125 from 6:00 a.m. to 9:00 a.m. Eastern.