After U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins closed the southern border to livestock crossings last year due to the threat of New World Screwworm, Secretary Rollins indicated at a recent event that a partial reopening of the border is being considered. We caught up with USDA Deputy Secretary Stephen Vaden to learn what factors they are considering.
Deputy Secretary Vaden said, “So obviously factor number one is what is safe for our American cattlemen. We don’t want this pest here in the United States and we want to ensure that everything we do is designed to ensure that this pest cannot find a permanent home here. But with regard to that, we think that as situations in Mexico become better, there may be a way to gradually and with responsible inspections open certain ports of entry of cattle into the United States and we think that that may be an eventuality on down the road. So we’re preparing for it, as we should.”
“But for right now, we’re monitoring developments in Mexico, we’re obviously continuing to distribute sterile flies over an area just south of our border to help halt the pest’s northern growth and we’re preparing for the eventual day when the statistics will allow us to begin a phased reopening, very slow, of the Mexican border. But we will not do so until it is safe to do so, until the data tells us it’s safe to do so,” said Vaden.
Audio Reporting by Dale Sandlin for Southeast AgNet.