@NewBrazil,
U$18/dozen (East side Manhattan, NYC, Jan26) ¹
Your U$4.89 works out to about R$25 (for 30 eggs). Here in Paraiba I'm paying R$1/egg, bought straight from small producers in the region. Regular marketplace white eggs are about R$0.60/egg (U$1.41/dozen). Folks here think that the R$1/egg price (U$2.35/dozen) is huge, and it WAS cheaper not-so-long-ago, yet many small producers have a small margin of profit given feed costs. Many convert their operations to producing meat rather than eggs.
The regions's production is slowly converting away from small producers. I keep supporting small producers [just as I always did back in Wisconsin] because I believe it keeps family incomes (not corporate incomes) in better shape. It makes me sad when I see how Wisconsin's dairy industry has changed leading to a lot of people leaving the industry and plenty of water quality issues (huge slurry ponds).
1980 / Wi dairy farms 45000 / Cows 1,815,000 / Milk in lbs 22,380,000,000
2021 / Wi dairy farms 6335 / Cows 1,274,000 / Milk in lbs 31,702,000,000 ²
Comparing costs USA/Brazil can be tricky. It is an extreme luxury to have a USA income in a Brazilian marketplace and while there are some Brazilians with comfy regular incomes the vast majority suffer to make ends meet.
I don't understand enough about [USA] egg production costs and the effects of avian flu causing absurdly high egg costs in the USA but we have similar issues here when we go through drought cycles and feed vanishes from the feed stores and alternative feeds cease to exist.
I am fortunate to be able to buy most of my food from small producers that I know and who produce quality products as they look to keep their families happy in the rural areas.
¹ Guardian - "$18 a dozen: how did America’s eggs get absurdly expensive?"
² Sources: Wisconsin State Dairy Farmer & USDA QuickStats
-@mberigan
Industrial Farming and rapid urbanization goes hand in hand.
Suburban Sprawl takes away Farm land, mostly displacing longstanding Graingers that either sellout or simply can't make a go with large food conglomerates herd/flock flattening slim margins contracts.
Then Industrial Farming, commoditizes staple foods, creates problems with animal health and diseases, and a large problem with disposing the waste, and it breeds Food Cartels. In the US, it's Purdue, Tyson Foods. In Brazil is JB Foods, which is also in the US.Â
And then grain feeding, no free range flock . Whatever poison they lay on the ground for soybean production is absorbed upwards through the food chain, thanks to Bayer/Monsanto and others. Little wonder people are developing cancer.
i grew up having laying chickens in the backyard, small coop, can't do anymore. i grow a small bunch, then sanitation gets called in by neighbors.
Close to where i live, on a 15 minute walking distance, once a Grainger's Lot ( Granja ITO , owned by a Japanese Family ), this going back over 30 years ago.  it's now a cluster of high rise buildings and a Shopping Mall ). On Sao Paulo's East Side, by Itaquera, a lot of Japanese used to run small orchards and egg/chicken production small farms. Some moved out to Mogi das Cruzes and Suzano.
If you had issues with your health ( baby diarrea or rejecting mother's milk ) ,then free range goat milk would fix it.. Hard to herd them in small plots in the city anymore. Can't feed them on grain either, if you want to reap the benefits or goat fresh milk, dairy, or meat.Â
What I| learned is that free range goats browse, and in doing so, with their diggestive enzymes, they can absorbe noxious weeds. Different plants, different root structures, and they are better are capturing trace minerals, something that grazing or grain feed can't.
I used to watch "A Few Acres Farms" and what he does ressonate. Does not sell to large food conglomerates, keep it local and direct.Â
Problems with Winsconsin, is the same as upstate New York. They can't get labor as they used to ( no more Mexicans or Central Americans working the parlors ), thanks to INS raids, and then they get squeezed on their margins against predatory pricing from large food conglomerates.Â
I remember, in Rhode Island, you could get glass bottle milk delivery at your doorstep by two local distributors. One was Christiansen's run by a brother and sister. The other was and still Munroe Dairy ( cowhyde trucks ). Christiansen's a family affair, threw up the towel not long ago. The actually let you take the glass bottles on a verbal promise to return them. Their milk tasted far better than the plastic jugs you bought at the C-Store.
What i found is that they actually bought their milk, not from Vermont, but from Coop Dairy Farmers in upstate New York ( to which they openly disclosed ).Â
Signs of times, I guess.