FSIS on the frontline as New World screwworm threatens food safety in the United States
Food security is a major concern by leading the US Secretary to Agriculture Brooke Rollins to combat the threat of the new screw verge (NWS), an endemic pest in Central and South America. Rollins announced on Friday that $ 850 million would feed the USDA five-component plan issued in June to prevent the northern propagation of NWS in Mexico in the United States.
To date, Rollins has said that the screw worm has not been reported or detected in the United States in animals. When the NWS steal larvae (asticots) dig into the flesh of a living animal, they cause serious and often fatal damage to the animal. The NWS can infest cattle, pets, fauna, sometimes birds and, in rare cases, people. It is not only a threat to our farming community, but it is a threat to our food supply and our national security.
The secretary explained that the USDA food and inspection service (FSIS) inspects animals and carcasses on slaughter, and has the role of maintaining the NWS for security supply.
While the USDA coordinates efforts to combat the NWS, Rollins said it would require continuous collaboration between federal agencies, state governments and the private sector. She said that this is why the USDA works alongside the US Food and Drug Administration to encourage the development of animal medicines and prioritize approvals for the prevention and treatment of pests, the American environmental protection agency and the American Ministry of Energy on Innovations in order to improve our ability to fight against pests with technologies, and American customs and border protection to protect the American border.
The Inspection Service on the Health of Animals and Plants of the USDA (APHIS) also works in collaboration with the National Service of Health, Safety and Quality of Agrifood Food (Senasica) in Mexico to help this country to contain the pest south of the American border by improving the surveillance of the United States, monitoring, improving the case report, locking the movements of animals to prevent Spreads, offering plots, lips, training and vertigo of Mexican activities.
“We have evaluated the information on the field in Mexico and determined that we must build an additional installation of sterile flies in the United States to stop the progress towards the north of this terrible devastating which threatens the American production of American cattle. Security threat, ”said Rollins.
“The construction of a production of production of sterile domestic flies will ensure that the United States continues to show the way to the fight against this devastating pest. If foreign pests invade our breeders, then we cannot feed. USDA and customs and border protection constantly monitor our entrance ports to keep NWS away from our borders.
With the Governor of Texas, Greg Abbott, the USDA boss said that federal funding provides up to $ 750 million for a production of domestic sterile flies at Moore Airfield Base in Edinburg, TX, as well as additional dollars for research. The new sterile flies production installation has a capacity of 300 million flies per week.
The president of Texas & Southwestern Cattle Raisers Association (TSCRA), Carl Ray Polk Jr.
The only sterile fly installation in the world is COPEG in Pacora, Panamá, which currently works at full capacity, producing 115 million flies per week. The United States had an installation in chiapas during the Verse à to Vis epidemic in the 1960s, but it has since been closed.
“The TSCRA has long drawn attention to the critical need for an increase in the number of sterile flies to repel NWS populations away from Darién. An installation of production of sterile flies is a guaranteed investment given the financial consequences for our agricultural economy, the populations of fauna and public health, “said Polk.
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