00:00We've been doing so much reporting on Screw Worm and how it's affecting Texas cattle and
00:05agriculture nationwide. So today we decided to do a broader conversation on that. We're going
00:10to bring in Joe Lovinger. He's the Texas business reporter who's been covering this
00:15and Elizabeth Elkin who covers agriculture for us along with the USDA. And I want to start here
00:21with Joe. Thanks so much for being here with us. Talk about where we are right now with Screw Worm.
00:26Sure. So for months now, Texas officials and ranchers have been tracking the Screw Worm as
00:31it's made its way north through Mexico. And on June 3rd, we actually detected our first case of
00:36Screw Worm in an animal in Texas. So that was a calf that was in South Texas. And it's now
00:42doing better.
00:42It's been treated. But we have detected 19 cases in total. These are mostly in cattle, but also in
00:48goats and in sheep, even in a dog. So Texas is working to build up its capacity to fight back
00:54against the Screw Worm with sterile flies. But that's going to take months and months to get to
00:58the level where they need to be to actually eradicate the pest again. So in the meantime,
01:02they're working to help contain cases that are detected and make sure it doesn't spread further.
01:07Every day, Elizabeth, you are covering exactly how the USDA responds and what is happening in terms
01:14of the supply chain, in terms of agriculture, in terms of cattle. Where are we now?
01:19Yeah. So the USDA has been preparing for this for months, right? The industry knew it was coming.
01:26The USDA knew it was coming. The border has been closed to Mexican cattle for over a year. And as
01:34Joe said, the way that they're mainly trying to combat this is through releasing sterile flies to try
01:40to stop the parasite from reproducing. Basically, they have facilities that sterilize them, and then they
01:47distribute them so that the males can mate with wild female flies. And generally, they only mate once.
01:54So that prevents new Screw Worm from being born, right? They opened a new facility in Texas to disperse
02:01the flies. And they've said that they have developed a way to double production of these sterile flies with
02:08a male-only strain of flies. That way, you know, they can just have a lot of males to release
02:14out into the
02:15wild to mate with these females. But our reporting does say that they're probably more than a year
02:21away from meaningful results, because we only have a fraction of the sterile flies that we need.
02:26So while they work to build that up, they're funding some projects to develop other ways to try to combat
02:33it. So that includes, like, they're looking into employing dogs to sniff for larvae or, like, using drones with thermal
02:43imaging so that they can try to identify animals that might need inspection or, like, AI-assisted smartphone
02:52apps that they say could be used to screen larvae in the field so that you can say, oh, is
02:59this,
03:00is the sterile fly larva? And then call in someone from the USDA to help.
03:04Here's a question for both of you. Elizabeth, I will start with you on this. When you talk about
03:09more than a year away, there are going to be people that are listening to this and say, we're going
03:13to
03:13be dealing with this for more than a year. And, Joe, I want you to address the ranchers aspect of
03:18that
03:18as well. Absolutely. So they're building a facility that is kind of, we think the USDA's, like,
03:26biggest hope on this. It's the largest production facility by far. It's at Moore Air Force Base
03:34in Texas. And it's not supposed to reach its initial goal of 100 million flies a week until November
03:432027. So that is probably the USDA's biggest hope right now of totally eradicating it. So right now,
03:50there is a lot of talk of, okay, how do we try to keep it from spreading significantly? And I
03:59asked
04:00Brooke Rollins, the USDA secretary, a few weeks ago, you know, how far she thinks it'll spread before
04:08we're able to, like, stop it. And she said that she probably needs some more time to watch how the
04:14spread is happening now and to just be able to kind of think about where things are headed because this
04:19is so new, right, in the U.S. right now. You're talking to the ranchers.
04:24That's right. Yeah. And ranchers are really having to go back into their tool shed and find things that
04:29they haven't had to do in decades. This was a big issue in Texas in the 1950s and 1960s. And
04:35so some
04:35of the ranchers, a lot of them, it's a family business. Maybe their child or their grandchild is
04:40running the ranch now. And they're now talking with grandpa about how did you take care of a calf
04:45that was infected with screwworm. And there are a lot of new treatments that the USDA has approved
04:51since then. There are a lot of new, you know, pastes and sprays that make it better to take care
04:55of a flock. But it requires a lot more hands-on inspection of animals. And that can be really hard
05:01on Texas ranches that can spread for hundreds or even thousands of acres. And there's already a labor
05:05shortage. So it's really hard to make sure you can get around and individually inspect every cow in
05:11your herd. But that's what they're starting to do now. Elizabeth, when you talk to the USDA and when
05:17you're listening to the news conferences and getting the information, is there any sense of how widespread
05:23they think this will be? Or do they feel they have a good handle on it? I think it's really
05:28hard to tell
05:29at this point. I mean, part of I think the problem is, is they're not totally sure how it got
05:36here to
05:37begin with, like whether it spread from a cow or whether it was flies, like coming in by air. There,
05:44you know,
05:44I asked a couple of weeks ago, and they still were not sure quite how it initially spread. I think
05:51it spreads fast.
05:53It is difficult to contain. And they're not totally sure what this will look like yet. But Brooke Rollins has
06:00said
06:00that she's already talking to states like New Mexico about what it might look like if it goes
06:05there. So they're kind of preemptively talking about where it might go next. But it's hard at this
06:12point to say exactly what that spread is going to look like. Appreciate you both being here, keeping us
06:19up to speed on Screw Room. Thank you so much for the reporting. Thanks for having us.
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