Berkshire Farms on Grand Bahama is working to meet the demand for affordable eggs amid bird flu and high prices.

Berkshire Farms Managing Director, Terrance Roberts III said, “with raising hens and animals for food production we have to understand they also have a limit on how many eggs they would produce at a given time based on breed. So this breed that we have here, the older hens, they would produce consistently for about two to three years and right now they on the cusp of two years. So the call was to bring in new birds that would replace them, two weeks after they came in the price of eggs went up drastically. It worked out for us in a timely fashion but these ones won’t be laying eggs until another four to five months.”

Roberts emphasized the need for quality. He said, “it’s more about what we put into our bodies and understanding how it works versus a very intensive system where you’re just pushing the animals to their limits just to get an item.”

Berkshire Farms has order 1200 additional chicks to help meet the increased demand for locally produced eggs. Roberts spoke of ways farmers can help each other. “There are cooperatives. It’s just a matter of our community members getting together and saying let’s cooperate, let’s work together because even if you think about buying in bulk, if we say okay the family is going abroad to do some shopping, you go to Sam’s, CostCo, one of those and you just buy in bulk and you spend less. If we say multiple farmers get together or even those who are interested in farming can buy into a farm or if it’s a cooperative you buy into that cooperative where you spend less to get more and share the wealth.”

A cartoon of eggs at Berkshire Farms is currently $7 compared to $12 in stores.