The Birds Come Back: Korea's Winter of Avian Flu and the Price of an Egg

On the last weekend of September, surveyors counted 57,036 waterfowl at ten of Korea's estuaries and reservoirs. At the three sites that can be compared with a year earlier, the Han River mouth, Sihwa Lake and Sapgyo Lake, birds of the duck family, which are highly susceptible to avian flu, rose from 6,448 to 18,678. On 30 September the Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs began warning farms; on 1 October the winter's special disease-control period began; on 13 October officials rehearsed a first confirmed case at a layer farm in Wanju. It was a drill.

As of 17 October, none of the ministry's releases announces a detection this autumn, in a wild bird or on a farm. Last winter's final farm case came on 8 April in Nonsan, and the last wild-bird detection on 24 March.

That quiet is the point. The egg market is shaped by a virus that arrives on a calendar. What follows each arrival depends on choices people make: how many birds are culled around an infected farm, how much compensation a farm receives, and how the farm is built. After two shock seasons, in 2016–17 and 2020–21, and a third last winter, those choices have been changing.

Two shocks, and the eggs that came by air

The first shock reached shelves in the winter of 2016–17. In January 2017, Seoul Shinmun reported, the first fresh eggs ever imported from the United States, 1.64 million of them, were being flown in, a report we have not checked against a ministry release. By 6 March, KREI counted 23.92 million layers culled, a third of the flock.

In 2020–21 the toll was smaller and the response larger. By 21 April 2021 the layer flock stood at 67.71 million, 2.82 million, or 4.0 percent, below its norm. A tray of 30 eggs cost ₩7,358 on 22 April, 38 percent above the normal ₩5,313 by Ag Digest's arithmetic, after ₩7,821 on 15 February. The government had waived the tariff on 50,000 tonnes of eggs from late January and brought in 64 million eggs by March.

Last winter's cull was smaller than either earlier one. The arithmetic of recovery has not changed. Restocking a flock to full production takes six to nine months, the ministry says, which is why prices were still above last year's in June and why the state again went abroad: 133.24 million fresh eggs from the United States, Thailand, Brazil and Denmark this year, at a cost the ministry puts at about ₩82 billion including distribution.

Cattle prices turn on a cycle measured in years, as The Hanwoo Beef Economy describes. An egg flock is rebuilt in months, so on our reading the shock is sharp and short.

Three levers, and a fourth the ministry has not pulled

The first lever is how many birds die around each case. Until 15 February 2021 the ministry culled all poultry within 3 km of an infected farm. It then cut that to the same species within 1 km, and by October 2021 the standing rule was 500 metres, all species. Last winter added a risk test: 500 metres remains the principle, but farms judged low-risk, such as breeder farms under strict controls, can be spared, and the risk is reassessed every two weeks. The ministry's stated aim was to cull less and so steady prices.

The second lever is compensation. When disease strikes, the standard payment is cut by 20 percent of the animals' assessed value, and further cuts for broken biosecurity rules can take the reduction as high as 80 percent. By 22 December inspectors had caught 43 farms breaking orders, 30 of them layer farms. Since May 2025 there is a reward as well: a layer farm with no case in the past year that meets the ministry's standard can have its reduction eased by 10 percent of assessed value.

The third lever works on supply. Hens in cages must now have 0.075 square metres each instead of 0.05, applied to new flocks from September 2025 and to every farm from September 2027, after the ministry postponed it over egg supply and price worries. In May 2026, 655 of 1,685 layer farms, 39 percent, still used the older cages, and 521 of them had filed plans to change. The two goals pull apart: more room per hen means fewer hens in existing barns.

Vaccination is the lever not pulled. In April the ministry said it was analysing the benefits by watching other countries, and the voices below show how far apart the sector and the ministry sit.

Field note: what to watch this winter

• The first detection. A wild-bird case brings a 10 km surveillance zone for 21 days. Any case, wild or on a farm, moves the national alert to its highest level at once and can trigger a nationwide movement standstill.
• The layer clusters. The plan singles out 12 dense layer clusters, the Pyeongtaek and Hwaseong area, north-west Cheonan, and Gimje, which has had cases three years running.
• The price. KREI's five-year farm-gate norm for ten large eggs is ₩1,671; early October stood at ₩1,962.
• The calendar. This winter's special period runs to 28 February 2027. Last winter's ran to 15 April.

When the next bird tests positive, ask what happens in the 500 metres around it: how many farms are culled, and which are spared. Is that line drawn to stop a virus or to protect a price, and can it be both?