LUBBOCK, TEXAS (RFD NEWS) — U.S. Agriculture Secretary Brooke L. Rollins is signaling a possible reopening of the southern border to Mexican feeder cattle as officials work to manage the threat of the New World Screwworm.
“So against all odds, we have been able to keep [New World screwworm], with a few exceptions, right around 200 miles south of the Texas border, but there’s no question when you look at the heat maps that it is in large proportion moving up,” Rollins said Saturday at a cattle event in Texas. “But we have the new dispersal facility. We’ve been, you know, moving around and adjusting as day-to-day as we get new data coming in. So we’re looking at it every single day. There are four ports, right? Two in Texas on the Mexican border, one in New Mexico, and one in Arizona. The closest the screwworm has gotten to the Arizona border is about 800 miles. So we are currently evaluating a potential phased-in strategy. We obviously will not be opening all four ports anytime soon, but there is a realistic conversation that’s currently happening. It’s looking at that port that’s about 800 miles from the closest case.”
Rollins added she expects an announcement on the border within the next month. The USDA is also planning a mid-April opening of a new sterile fly production facility in South Texas to help combat the pest and protect the U.S. herd.
Unlike row crops that can be stored until prices improve, livestock must be sold when ready. However, due to increasing pressure on fed cattle inventories in the United States, live cattle weights have steadily increased over the past decade, offsetting declining slaughter numbers.
“That is one of the disadvantages to trying to hold out — they get heavier and heavier, and then you start getting discounted cattle because they get too heavy,” explains livestock analyst Brian Hoops. “So yes, it’s unlike corn feeding, where you can put a corn crop and store it in the bin. You can sit on it for six, nine months —as long as it stays in good condition — and hope that prices rebound. Can’t really do that with your livestock animals. They have to be marketed at some point. You can wait one or two weeks, but at some point you do have to turn those animals loose and get them sold and slaughtered.”
Packers now purchase fat cattle out of feedlots weighing roughly 1,500 pounds, compared with 1,250–1,300 pounds ten years ago. Animals exceeding this weight often face significant discounts, with cash prices last week selling at $235–$240 per hundredweight.
A new beef supply chain model tracks cattle from cow-calf operations through stocker, feedyard, packer, and retail, using consistent weight and pricing assumptions over an 18-month cycle. It shows margins shift based on market conditions and input costs, and estimates total losses from carcass to retail cuts of 11–12 percent, plus additional shrinkage at the retail level. According to the model, changes in weight or pricing at any point in the system can impact profits throughout the entire beef supply chain.
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