A single cow in Mexico and a pest the size of a housefly have held up pens full of Texas-bound cattle worth millions of dollars for the past six weeks.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture has banned Mexican cattle imports since November after a parasite known as screwworm, which wriggles into the flesh of livestock and kills them if left untreated, was discovered on a cow near Mexico’s border with Guatemala. The ban on imports is a bigger problem than the screwworm itself, according to Texas Agriculture Commissioner Sid Miller and some Texas cattle ranchers, who say closing cattle imports damages their livelihoods, bottlenecks beef production and could increase beef prices for consumers.
“I get calls every single day from people asking for cattle,” said Alvaro Bustillos, president of Vaquero Trading, a livestock procurement company in El Paso. “Key steps in the production value chain are being stopped because people cannot source cattle.”
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