Officials from both the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the Texas Department of Agriculture updated state lawmakers on efforts to combat the New World Screwworm, which has been nearing Texas’ southern border with Mexico.
Originating in South America, the New World Screwworm is a parasite that eats the tissue of warm-blooded mammals. Texas agriculture officials have called the pest a dire threat to the state’s wildlife population and to the nearly $15 billion cattle industry.
Dudley Hoskins, an under secretary with the U.S. Department of Agriculture, informed Texas House lawmakers during a joint hearing before the committees on Agriculture & Livestock and Culture, Recreation & Tourism that the actions taken by the USDA so far have seemingly been successful.
“On behalf of the secretary and the department, I can assure you that keeping New World screwworm out of the United States is the highest priority for Secretary Rollins and the entire Trump Administration,” Hoskins told the committee. “The secretary has been leading the whole-of-government approach, all-hands-on-deck [effort] within USDA and within our interagency family.”
Hoskins highlighted the deployment of over 120 screwworm traps along the southern borders of Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, and California. After examining more than 30,000 captured flies from these traps, officials say the screwworm has not crossed the southern border into the U.S., even though a cattle infestation was reported only 70 miles from the border.
Rear Admiral Michael Schmoyer, a USDA associate administrator and an appointed lead for the New World Screwworm Directorate, told lawmakers that the 14 cases of screwworm infestation that have been confirmed within 400 miles of the border are related to cattle movement, not an increase of screwworm flies moving northward.
Hoskins also reports that Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins is continuing to work with the Army Corps to ensure that the sterile fly production facility being built at Moore Air Force Base will be completed in the 12-18 month time frame set in August.
A companion sterile fly dispersal facility at the base is projected to be completed by the end of January 2026.
Texas Agriculture Commissioner Sid Miller also shared how the state’s Department of Agriculture is assisting, not only with preventative measures being taken, but also in preparing for the possibility the pest could cross into Texas.
Miller specifically explained that he has received assurance that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration would expedite critical approvals for new technologies, such as the anti-parasitic drug “EXO,” remarking on its unprecedented potential even though it will have limitations for cattle intended for slaughter and dairy cattle.
The USDA has published a “screwworm playbook” that clarifies the roles of federal, state, and industry in the case of a detection of the screwworm and created a website for centralized resources.
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