USDA will slowly reopen the southern border for livestock trade despite New World screwworm concerns.
Ag Secretary Brooke Rollins has expressed optimism with the pest’s containment.
Congressman Frank Lucas of Oklahoma says that he was encouraged by USDA’s actions to increase sterile fly production.
“The department is trying under emergency authority, and we’ll back them up in any way we can in Congress to as quick as possible, get the production up and get these things under control. We need to keep them out of the United States until after the hard frost this fall, and by spring, hopefully, we’ll have the volume of production we need to suppress them back to the Panama Canal again. This is one of those things where we have paid for decades and decades— the United States has to produce these flies and dump them out. We depend on our neighbors to monitor and cooperate with us, but it has saved us untold amounts of money by paying for the fly program to keep them out of not just us, but our neighbors and everybody back to the Panama Canal.”
Congressman Lucas expressed the need for urgency in addressing the issue and said that using science will be key.
“It never should be underestimated how important science is to agriculture. It’s not just the screwworm eradication program in the United States in the 60s and 70s, but to think about the boweavil eradication program that’s worked so successfully. Think about the brucellosis eradication program. Using science over the course of your lifetime and mine, we have made the supply dramatically safer and more dependable, and the livelihood of our fellow citizens more stable, using these techniques. We just need to make sure our neighbors continue to work with us to follow through.”
Lucas is a fifth-generation Oklahoman whose family has farmed there for more than 120 years. He says that his father and grandfather faced challenges fighting the pest decades ago. He said it devastated not only livestock but wildlife too.
