Beef prices continue to fluctuate, and the U.S. Department of Agriculture is trying to balance lowering costs with its New World screwworm eradication efforts since officials confirmed the insect crossed into the U.S. earlier this summer.
On Friday, the department announced it would again begin importing cattle from Mexico, the epicenter of the insect’s outbreak. The imports are slated to begin Aug. 24 in Arizona, a place where U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins says it’s safe to begin reopening cattle ports.
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While importing more cattle should help ease beef prices, agriculture leaders in Texas — the state worst hit by the outbreak — say it could lead to more infections if the USDA doesn’t keep up intensive eradication efforts.
What is the import plan?
In its release, the Agriculture Department said the plan is to implement a phased, coordinated reopening of cattle ports along the southern border. The first port the department plans to open is in Douglas, Arizona, while simultaneously starting the first steps to reopen ports in Santa Teresa and Columbus, New Mexico.
The USDA said every animal entering the U.S. would undergo a full inspection to ensure it’s “free of any signs of New World screwworm.”
Rollins said that removing the insect from the U.S. and Mexico remains one of the administration’s biggest priorities. But she said that, thanks to efforts already underway, it’s now safe to begin reopening ports.
“The closure of the Southern ports of entry for the last year has been a tough but necessary action to control the spread of NWS in Mexico and protect the American livestock industry,” Rollins said. “Thanks to the work … it is now safe to reopen the Douglas, Arizona, port in 30 days to resume the hundreds year old movement of cattle.”
The USDA said the reopening timeline is flexible and the department could adjust it based on Mexico’s progress in addressing screwworm concerns.
Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum said on X on Saturday that the USDA notified her of the plans in a letter and that she is accelerating Mexico’s efforts to be ready for the reopening.
“I have instructed that we accelerate our work and collaboration with the United States even further to have everything ready as soon as possible to restart the movement of cattle,” she wrote.
Texas Department of Agriculture Commissioner Sid Miller told Straight Arrow the port closure has hurt many people in Texas. He said the effects have been so severe that companies have had to close down.
“Talk to Lubbock Feeders — they had to close their feedlot. It broke them,” Miller said. “They’re out of business because they mainly fed cattle imported from Mexico.”
How bad is the screwworm outbreak?
The USDA said it’s detected at least 42 cases of screwworm in the U.S. since it was first detected in early June. The vast majority of them, 41 cases, are in Texas, while officials confirmed one case in New Mexico.
The department currently lists only nine cases as active.
Since the outbreak started, the USDA has begun an active campaign against the New World screwworm. This includes releasing millions of sterilized male screwworms to destroy insect populations.
While releasing millions of potentially deadly insects into the ecosystem seems counterintuitive, the process exploits the flies’ biology against them. Female screwworm flies are the source of infection since they lay eggs in open wounds, which eventually hatch and begin feeding on a host. But they only mate once, and if they mate with a sterilized male, the eggs don’t hatch.
This approach worked the last time screwworms posed an issue to the U.S. in the 1960s. Back then, the insect was infecting millions of cattle, leading to up to $100 million in non-inflation-adjusted losses, according to the USDA.
Despite the efforts, some local agriculture leaders have said it’s not enough. After the USDA announced its plans to reopen the ports, Miller applauded the move but said: “the screwworm response have not matched the threat.”
“USDA has spent more than a year reacting instead of getting ahead of the problem, and our producers have paid the price,” Miller said in a press release. “We cannot afford to rely on half-measures when billions of dollars in livestock production are on the line.”
Miller emphasized that the reopening is not the finish line and that cattle ranchers need sustained efforts by the federal government to ensure a disruption like this doesn’t happen again.
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