A single cow in Mexico and a pest the scale of a housefly have held up pens stuffed with Texas-bound cattle price thousands and thousands of {dollars} for the previous six weeks.
The U.S. Division of Agriculture has banned Mexican cattle imports since November after a parasite referred to as screwworm, which wriggles into the flesh of livestock and kills them if left untreated, was found on a cow close to Mexico’s border with Guatemala. The ban on imports is a much bigger drawback than the screwworm itself, in accordance with Texas Agriculture Commissioner Sid Miller and a few Texas cattle ranchers, who say closing cattle imports damages their livelihoods, bottlenecks beef manufacturing and will improve beef costs for customers.
“I get calls each single day from individuals asking for cattle,” mentioned Alvaro Bustillos, president of Vaquero Buying and selling, a livestock procurement firm in El Paso. “Key steps within the manufacturing worth chain are being stopped as a result of individuals can’t supply cattle.”
Miller remembers a time when screwworm wreaked havoc in Texas — $132 million in damages in 1976 — however mentioned the USDA prematurely closed imports and is hampering an business nonetheless making an attempt to get well from two years of widespread drought.
“There’s no method we’re going to get screwworm,” Miller instructed The Texas Tribune. “We’ve a really strict import course of for these cattle.”
About 3% of U.S. cattle come from Mexico. However Mexican cattle play a disproportionate function in southern states’ beef manufacturing. Roughly two-thirds of Mexican cattle imports stay in Texas, New Mexico or Oklahoma, in accordance with an estimate from Ben Weinheimer, the president and CEO of the Texas Cattle Feeders Affiliation, which represents the business throughout these three states.
Cattle crossing between Mexico and the U.S. stays on maintain whereas the USDA installs new inspection pens and enhanced security protocols to make sure cattle are wholesome. Holding the U.S. freed from screwworm saves livestock producers near $1 billion a yr, mentioned Texas Animal Well being Fee spokesperson Erin Robinson, pointing to a USDA estimate that accounts for prices of labor, remedy, veterinary care, eradication efforts and lack of manufacturing.
Shutting off Mexican cattle imports has contributed to a current improve in cow costs, mentioned David P. Anderson, a professor of agricultural economics at Texas A&M College AgriLife Extension. Costs of feeder steers, which make up a big portion of Mexican cattle imports, are forecast to rise by 8% in 2025, a USDA report states. If import restrictions proceed for for much longer, beef manufacturing might drop, pushing up costs for customers.
“Fewer cattle imply greater beef costs, growing inflation on the checkout line,” Miller wrote in a Dec. 23 editorial, including that the ban “might ship shockwaves by the meat market.”
Screwworm infestations happen when a feminine fly lays her eggs on an animal’s open wound or one other space corresponding to their eyes or mouth. The feminine can lay as much as 300 eggs at a time, and any warm-blooded animal, together with people, though uncommon, could be affected. The eggs hatch into larvae that dig into the animal and feed on residing flesh.
Screwworm was declared eradicated from the U.S. in 1966, however Texas skilled a more moderen outbreak in 1976 that affected 20% of cattle.
Farmers disrupted
When Bustillos came upon the weekend earlier than Thanksgiving that imports of Mexican cattle have been to be halted as a result of a single cow had screwworm, he was upset.
“Primarily based on what is going on 3,000 kilometers down south, they’re shutting us down,” Bustillos mentioned. “I don’t suppose it’s truthful.”
Bustillos has a stake in each exporting and importing cattle. He’s board chairman and president of the Chihuahua Cattlemen’s Affiliation, which represents Mexican cattle producers. He additionally leads Vaquero Buying and selling, which imports greater than 200,000 Mexican cattle a yr and provides cows to feedlots in a number of states.
Bustillos says he has labored arduous to construct belief between the U.S. and Mexico, putting in thousands and thousands of {dollars} price of sanitation practices that hold livestock protected and pest free on either side of the border. Cattle getting into the U.S. should have well being certificates, vaccinations and testing to forestall ailments from getting into the U.S, per necessities from the USDA’s Animal and Plant Well being Inspection Service.
November and December are sometimes when the U.S. imports the most important variety of cattle from Mexico. Most of these imports are small cows headed to ranches or feedlots, the place they’re fattened up earlier than getting despatched to packing crops for beef manufacturing.
The U.S. has steadily elevated Mexican cattle imports through the years. In 2023, about 1.1 million cattle entered from Mexico, up from about 870,000 the yr prior. An prolonged drought coupled with greater U.S. cattle costs contributed to that improve, mentioned Anderson, the economist.
“We’ve the smallest cow herd within the U.S. since 1961, so now we have greater costs right here,” Anderson mentioned about Texas’ cattle business. “That makes us a pretty marketplace for Mexico to promote to.”
Federal officers haven’t specified when cattle shipments will resume, however a USDA spokesperson mentioned in late December that shipments would resume “incrementally after the New Yr, with full resumption someday after that.”
“Defending American livestock from international pests is our prime precedence,” the spokesperson mentioned in an e-mail.
Anderson mentioned he doesn’t count on customers to see vital improve in beef costs if commerce resumes this month.
For Bustillos, the longer the shutdown continues, the extra involved he grows in regards to the market. Cows are imported at sure occasions of yr primarily based on their weight and the provision of grass for them to graze. If the border doesn’t reopen quickly, he says, cattle might begin to lose worth.
For now business leaders are hopeful commerce opens up quickly.
“The hope is that in January we’ll begin to see some semblance of regular commerce,” Weinheimer mentioned.
‘We don’t need them again’
Anderson has heard sufficient tales about screwworm from his father to know the injury they’ll carry.
“Each day they needed to seize every pig and search for wounds and sores,” he mentioned. “They’d clear them out and put drugs on…It was horrible.”
So Anderson says it is smart for the USDA to deal with screwworm earlier than it’s wherever close to the U.S.
“It could value extra to eradicate them in case you let the issue develop greater,” he mentioned.
The screwworm is eradicated by dropping sterile male flies from airplanes over giant areas. Feminine screwworm flies mate solely as soon as of their lifetime, so the a great deal of sterile male flies prompted the inhabitants to ultimately die out. That methodology is the one option to eradicate the screwworm immediately, in accordance with the USDA.
Jim Schwertner, who operates a ranch in Williamson County, was a younger boy serving to run his household enterprise when the sterile fly method was launched in Texas. He mentioned it was a recreation changer and eradicated the screwworm inside a yr.
“Once they lastly eradicated it, life was an entire lot simpler for my dad and his cowboys,” Schwertner mentioned.
Schwertner recalled treating cattle hit by screwworm. “You’d put insecticide on with a paintbrush to maintain the screwworm off the cattle,” he mentioned. “It was a variety of work and actually costly.”
The method has been used to create a organic barrier in opposition to the screwworm in Panama. However the pest has exploded there and crept northward in recent times, spreading by Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Honduras and Guatemala. Texas and U.S. animal well being officers attribute the unfold to new areas of farming and elevated cattle motion. Federal officers accepted a $165 million emergency funding final month to cease screwworm from getting into the U.S. and to assist companions in Mexico and Central America eradicate it.
The eradication of screwworm has seemingly preserved Texas’ wildlife inhabitants. As lately as 2016, a resurgence of screwworm within the Florida Keys killed greater than 130 deer earlier than the pest was eradicated from the area the next yr utilizing the sterile fly method.
The Texas Parks and Wildlife Division has requested hunters and out of doors fanatics in South Texas to observe for animals affected by screwworm. Any wildlife with indicators of screwworm are to be reported to an area biologist. No circumstances have been confirmed in Texas, a spokesperson for the Texas Animal Well being mentioned.
Disclosure: Texas A&M College, Texas Cattle Feeders Affiliation and Texas Parks And Wildlife Division have been monetary supporters of The Texas Tribune, a nonprofit, nonpartisan information group that’s funded partly by donations from members, foundations and company sponsors. Monetary supporters play no function within the Tribune’s journalism. Discover a full record of them right here.
This text initially appeared in The Texas Tribune at https://www.texastribune.org/2025/01/13/texas-screwworm-cattle-agriculture/.
The Texas Tribune is a member-supported, nonpartisan newsroom informing and interesting Texans on state politics and coverage. Study extra at texastribune.org.
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Texas
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