USDA plans sterile fly facility in Texas to combat screwworm

Washington | Reuters — U.S. Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins introduced plans on Wednesday to open a sterile fly dispersal facility in Hidalgo County, Texas, as a part of the nation’s effort to fight the encroachment of New World screwworm.

Why it issues: New World Screwworm, a species of fly that has been eradicated within the U.S. for many years, has been shifting northward in Mexico, main the USDA to close the southern border to cattle imports.

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The Division of Agriculture can also be planning to design a sterile fly manufacturing facility at Moore Air Base, co-located with the dispersal facility, however that’s more likely to take two to a few years, Rollins stated at a press convention on the air base.

Rollins additionally stated the USDA is working with state animal well being officers to create emergency plans and to stockpile therapeutics within the case of the screwworm crossing into the nation.

Mexico has additionally taken efforts to restrict the unfold of the pest, which might infest livestock and kill inside weeks.

Rollins stated she and her workforce are working carefully with the Mexican authorities and that USDA employees have been working in Mexico on a collaborative response.

One key software to preventing screwworm is the discharge of sterile flies, which cut back the mating inhabitants of the wild flies.

Presently, the one sterile fly manufacturing facility in North America is in Panama. The Hidalgo County facility would obtain fly larvae from that plant, and lift and disperse the flies by airplane, Rollins stated.

Eighty members of the U.S. Congress, led by Glenn ‘GT’ Thompson of Pennsylvania, chair of the Home Agriculture Committee, despatched a letter to Rollins on Tuesday encouraging the USDA to construct a home sterile fly manufacturing plant.

Combating screwworm within the U.S. would require 400-500 million flies per week, whereas the Panama plant can produce simply 100 million per week, the letter stated.

The USDA has additionally invested $21 million in updating a plant in Metapa, Mexico, to provide sterile flies.