New World Screwworm Eradication Costs Underscore Need for Proposed Facility

As the USDA has announced plans to construct a new sterile fly production facility on the US Mexico border, there are alarming concerns when it comes to the New World screw I'm inching closer to the US National cattlemen Beef Association, Senior Director of Government Affairs, Sigrid Johannes, breaks down the high stakes of the pest entering the country.

“This is really $1 spent, now you know many more save down the road. The current estimates of what this would cost if we had an outbreak in the US are in the billions. Producer losses between one and 2 billion a year annually in Texas is one estimate, and for total eradication, if we had a severe outbreak in the US, the current APHIS estimate is about $675 billion to eradicate.”

USDA Secretary of Agriculture, Brooke Rollins, “We are fighting the screw room domestically, announcing plans for a sterile fly dispersal facility at Moore Air Base in Hidalgo County. We have the facilities in Panama. We're funding another facility south of the border. What this will allow us to do is to fly the larvae up from the facility in Panama and the other facility here to South Texas, here in Hidalgo County, to finish off so that the sterile flies are ready to go load them in the lanes and then get them across the border.”

The new facility is expected to take two to three years from construction to completion.