The New World Screworm fly poses a billion-dollar threat to the state’s economy.
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.
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.
Source: Berenice Garcia,
Photo Credit: Gov. Greg Abbott looks on as U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins speaks at a ribbon cutting event for the grand opening of a Domestic New World Screwworm sterile fly dispersal facility in Edinburg. Michael Gonzalez for The Texas Tribune
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