We have been covering the battle to control the New World Screwworm (NWS, Cochliomyia hominivorax), a flesh-eating parasitic fly whose larvae infest open wounds of warm-blooded animals, including livestock, wildlife, pets, and occasionally humans, causing severe tissue damage and often death if left untreated. The pest appears to be infesting Mexico and heading north.
In my last report, I noted that the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) is using high-tech and sterilized flies to contain and control these pests before they get into this country.
Now, a new federal facility is being built in South Texas to mass‑produce sterile New World screwworm flies as a biological control measure. A Minnesota firm has won the construction bid.
On Monday, the Edinburg facility inched closer to reality, with the Department of Agriculture and the Army Corps of Engineers awarding a $610 million contract to build the plant to Minnesota’s Mortenson Construction. USDA and USACE will break ground on this new facility later this spring, after initial planning and development meetings with the new contractor.The Texas facility is set to be the United States’ first domestic sterile fly plant, once it is completed in 2027 at the earliest. The U.S. currently relies on a single Panama facility that produces 100 million flies weekly to combat screwworms.Officials have warned that it is far short of the number needed to effectively address the parasite, which has been inching dangerously close to the Texas border in recent months after traveling out of the Caribbean and South America into northern Mexico.During the last major screwworm outbreak in Texas decades ago, the U.S. had around 700 million sterile flies on hand weekly. Now, authorities are fighting against time to expand production capacity domestically, since the screwworm holds the capacity to devastate Texas’s cattle and livestock industry, the pride of the state.
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) is partnering with the USDA to provide oversight on the project.
“The Army Corps of Engineers is an essential partner in bringing this facility to life and further highlights the Trump Administration’s government wide effort to fight the New World Screwworm threat in Mexico,” said U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Brooke L. Rollins.“The Army Corps is the best in the business and their engineering expertise and proven track record in delivering complex projects will help ensure we can build a modern, resilient facility that protects American agriculture from invasive pests for decades to come. This first of its kind facility on U.S. soil will ensure we are not reliant on other countries for sterile flies.”
Cattle market experts note that Mexico’s infestation, as well as a regional drought, are keeping prices up as inventories remain reduced.
According to Dr. David Anderson, a livestock economist at Texas A&M, drought conditions are adding to those shortages in Texas, which is the largest cattle-producing state in the country.“By making the herds smaller now, production’s really going down, and we see the effects in our grocery stores with higher prices,” Anderson said.Livestock experts and ranchers have said the New World screwworm fly found in Mexican cattle is also lowering the beef supply after the U.S. blocked imports to keep the parasite from spreading. They said it is causing a ripple effect on farmers and feed growers. Lubbock Feeders, one of the state’s largest feedlots, recently announced plans to shut down after 70 years.“They were primarily a Mexican cattle grower, and when that has been cut off for two years, it’s really hard to make a living, and so that was a contributing factor to them shutting down,” said Wells.
The pest is approximately 200 miles from the Texas border, according to a recent report.
“The northernmost active case of NWS in Mexico is still about 200 miles away from the border, but we’ve seen cases continue to spread in Tamaulipas and further south in Mexico, so we are proactively shifting our polygon as we make every effort to prevent NWS from reaching our border,” said Dudley Hoskins, USDA undersecretary of marketing and regulatory programs, in a January 30 press release.
Let’s hope the Army Corps, Mortenson, and USDA get this Texas facility up and running on time and on budget, because every day lost is another mile that screwworm creeps toward the Rio Grande – and toward our herds and our hamburgers.
If the Edinburg plant delivers the hundreds of millions of sterile flies per week that officials promise, we just might keep this flesh‑eating menace on the south side of the border and preserve both Texas cattle country and America’s steak dinners.
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