US EditionUSDA Opens Texas Facility to Release Sterile Flies Against Screwworm Threat
The USDA's new Texas facility aims to produce 300 million sterile screwworm flies weekly to protect the $30 billion livestock industry from an advancing parasitic threat.
- USDA opened a dispersal center in Edinburg, Texas that will release 100 million sterile flies weekly about 50 miles into Texas along the Tamaulipas border.
- With the pest closing in, Texas officials say the New World screwworm is now within 187 miles of the U.S. border, threatening the $30 billion livestock industry.
- The operation relies on sterilized males, which use ionizing radiation sterilization, and Panama's facility makes about 117 million flies weekly, with a billion weekly being ideal, as females mate only once.
- Gov. Greg Abbott issued a disaster declaration directing agencies to form a Texas New World Screwworm Response Team, and the Texas Animal Health Commission has held 200 producer meetings for education and outreach.
- USDA plans to scale up production with a $750 million domestic factory, a Moore Air Base production plant adding 300 million weekly, $100 million in grants due Feb. 23, 2026, and a $21 million Mexico conversion project.
62 Articles
62 Articles
With US Cattle at Risk, Texas Breaks Out the Flies
The first center for dispersing sterile screwworm flies from US soil in decades opened Monday in Texas, part of a larger effort to keep the flesh-eating parasite they spawn from crossing the Mexican border and wreaking havoc on the American cattle industry. US Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins and Texas Gov....
USDA to release sterile Screwworm flies in Texas
Progressive Farmer’s Jennifer Carrico reported that “USDA’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) has shifted sterile New World screwworm (NWS) fly release to include into Texas to help efforts to stop the northern spread of the pest.”
Facility to fight New World Screwworm threat opens in Edinburg
EDINBURG, Texas (ValleyCentral) — U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins and Texas Gov. Greg Abbott laid out their plans to prevent an outbreak of New World Screwworm, a parasitic fly that could put the United States cattle industry in upheaval. Rollins and Abbott were in Edinburg for a ribbon-cutting of a sterile fly dispersal facility, a [...]
Texas prepares for looming screwworm outbreak
Texas is ramping up preparations to meet the looming invasion of New World screwworm, a parasitic fly threatening the state’s multibillion-dollar livestock industry. The insect is typically found in South America and the Caribbean, but it found its way in late January to a northern Mexican state bordering Texas. The screwworm is now within 187 miles of the U.S. border, and it appears to be only a matter of time before it crosses into Texas, wit…
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