USDA Completes New Sterile Fly Production Facility in Tampico, Mexico
Courtesy of USDA/APHIS
The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) has announced the completion of a major infrastructure project critical to fighting the New World Screwworm (NWS): a new sterile fly production facility in Tampico, Mexico. The facility marks a significant advance in the U.S.–Mexico partnership to contain and eliminate this devastating pest, which threatens livestock and wildlife across North America.
USDA Undersecretary for Marketing and Regulatory Programs Dudley Hoskins explained the facility’s capabilities and why it represents a major step forward for the NWS eradication program.
“The sterile fly dispersal facility in Tampico will be operational and ready to disperse about 24 million sterile flies per week through aerial disbursement, and that’s a big deal for us because of a couple reasons. One, when we have the aerial option, we can reach a lot of areas in Mexico, including northern Mexico and Nuevo Leon, which you know, we’ve had a couple detections there, I think in September of this year, that were of significant concern to the Secretary, and she had us send people straight away, we were on the ground within hours, but there’s still just logistical challenges trying to get ground dispersals in place and operational.”
The new aerial dispersal capacity is especially important in rugged or remote areas.
“And with the Tampico facility, we’re able to load up planes and fly them just about anywhere in Mexico. So all those areas that are hard to get to logistically, geographically, this facility in Tampico gives us a quicker, faster, more direct reach to get sterile flies in the area and knock down a potential detection.”
Hoskins also recognized the efforts of APHIS personnel and their Mexican counterparts in completing the facility despite government shutdown delays.
“I know we’re here on November 13th at the end of a 43-day shutdown, and the Secretary’s original timeline for the Department to have the Tampico facility operational was November 10th. So yes, we did miss our deadline by about three days. But over the course of the 43-day shutdown, the men and women at APHIS, our partners in the States, our partners in Mexico at Senecica, they’ve been going full bore 24-7 and haven’t missed a beat. So I just want to call out that work and that effort and to credit to them that they were able to get this facility operational, more or less on point with the Secretary’s timeline.”
With the Tampico facility now ready, USDA is positioned to respond faster and more effectively to NWS detections, strengthening biosecurity across North America.
Audio Reporting by Dale Sandlin for Southeast AgNet.