He United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) will allocate up to 750 million dollars to build a production plant of sterile flies In Texas to combat the plague of New World Barrencador wormsaid the Secretary of Agriculture, Brooke Rollins on Friday.
The plan shows the growing concern about the risk that the worm BARRENORa parasitic fly that eats live the wild fauna, infessed to the American cabin after the plague moved north, from Mexico to the border with the United States.
An outbreak could further raise the record prices of beef in the United States by keeping more animals out of the supply.
In Texas, the largest flesh -producing state in the country, farmers foresee the return of the borer worm for the first time in decades. The United States eliminated this plague in the twentieth century by launching sterile flies full of sterile flies.
The new production plant of Edinburg, Texaswill be located next to a sterile flies dispersion installation already announced at the Moore Air Base and will have the capacity to produce 300 million sterile floreer flies A week, according to Rollins. Sterile flies reduce the masking population of wild flies.
“It is a tactical movement that guarantees that we are prepared and not only react,” Rollins said in a press conference with Texas governor, Greg Abbott.
Rollins did not say when the plant will open and the USDA did not immediately answer the questions about the project calendar. Rollins previously said that the construction of such an installation would carry between two and three years.
The USDA will spend others 100 million dollars in Technologies to combat worm BARRENOR of cattle while the installation is built, Rollins said.
Washington stopped the imports of cattle from Mexico in July to keep the pest away. Also invested millions in the creation of a new sterile flies production plant in Metapa (Mexico), but it will take about a year to go into operation.
In Panama, an installation breeds up to 100 million sterile flies of the bullish worm per week. The USDA estimates that it is necessary to release 500 million weekly flies to go back to the fly towards southern Latin America.
“All Americans should be worried, but they are undoubtedly Texas and our border states and cattle producers who are in the front line every day,” said Rollins.
