Gov. Greg Abbott was joined by U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins at the Texas Capitol where Rollins announced the federal government’s plan to spend up to $850 million to prevent the New World screwworm’s arrival in the United States.

The USDA has announced a new sterile fly breeding site in southern Texas to protect American cattle from the deadly New World screwworm maggots near the Mexico border.

Scott Varilek with Kooima Kooima Varilek says the big losses in the cattle market on Thursday were tied to concerns ahead of USDA's New World screwworm (NWS) announcement. Grains are bouncing on value and technical buying.

On Friday, Texas Governor Greg Abbott and U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins publicly addressed “plans to fight back against threats posed by the New World screwworm.”

The parasitic fly that attacks warm-blooded animals was eliminated from the United States in the 1960s, but it’s creeping toward the Texas-Mexico border.

The facility will have the capacity to produce 300 million sterile screwworm flies per week, tripling the current capacity to combat the New World screwworm threat.

The Texas Department of Agriculture continues to lead the fight against the threat of the New World Screwworm (NWS) by developing a state-of-the-art attractant to be used in tracking screwworm fly movement and proactively eliminating them where they are located.

The United States Animal Health Association will host a timely and critical new world screwworm symposium Sept. 24-25, 2025, to address the growing threat of the new world screwworm (NWS) to U.S. animal populations.

Lina de Florias fills in and covers the top afternoon reports from Houston and beyond for Saturday, Aug. 16, 2025.