EDINBURG — The United States and Texas are fully prepared to combat a parasitic fly that poses a billion-dollar threat to the Texas economy, U.S. Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins said Monday.
During a visit to the Rio Grande Valley with Gov. Greg Abbott, Rollins said proactive steps by the USDA and state response teams had prepared the region to eradicate New World Screwworm. This parasitic fly lays eggs in open wounds, posing a threat to livestock.
Recommended Videos
Texas leads the U.S. in cattle production, making the screwworm an extraordinary risk to the industry. Ranchers and other agriculture advocates have sounded the alarm about screwworm for more than a year.
Cases of screwworm have been detected in Mexico, as close as 70 miles from the border in the Mexican state of Nuevo Leon.
“I don’t want to underplay it because it is a big threat to our country, but I believe we’re as prepared as we could possibly be, if that happens, to deal with it, to move toward eradication,” Rollins said.
Rollins and Abbott celebrated the opening of a sterile fly dispersal facility located at Moore Air Base in Edinburg, which is meant to help deploy the main strategy in combating the screwworm. Sterile male flies are intended to mate with female screwworm flies, which then lay unfertilized eggs.
The Best of the Tribune in your Inbox
The Y’all is a weekly dispatch about the people, places and policies that define the state of Texas. Produced by Texas Tribune journalists embedded in communities across the state.
This week, sterile flies will be released in Northern Mexico and in Texas, within 50 miles of the Texas-Mexico border, as a precautionary measure.
Last year, Rollins ordered the closure of all southern ports of entry to livestock, which she said helped defy models that predicted screwworm would have crossed into the U.S. last fall. The federal government also invested $100 million into research, traps, treatment measures, a sterile flydispersal facility, and an expansion of border surveillance that includes mounted patrol officers known as tick riders.
Rollins said officials are also employing cameras that use artificial intelligence to detect screwworm.
At the state level, Abbott ordered the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department and the Texas Animal Health Commission to form a screwworm response team. Last month, the governor issued a disaster declaration to enable the response team to use all available state prevention and response resources.
Through a state and federal partnership, officials are also building a sterile fly production facility to accompany the only active sterile fly production facility in Panama. Larvae produced in Panama are flown to the Edinburg dispersal facility, where they continue growing and are then distributed when hatched.
However, the USDA is planning to have its own production facility here by the end of 2027. Once open, the $750 million facility is expected to open near the existing dispersal facility at Moore Air Base by the end of 2027.
“If it does cross our border, we are ready,” Rollins said. “We know the enemy, we know how to manage it, we know how to solve for it, and we will do everything we can to protect our country.”
Reporting in the Rio Grande Valley is supported in part by the Methodist Healthcare Ministries of South Texas, Inc.