FORT WORTH, Texas – While the USDA continues to prepare and defend against a potential southern invasion of New World screwworm (NWS), President Donald Trump has proposed the U.S. import beef from Argentina to hedge against further supply issues and reduce consumer beef prices. Just hours after USDA’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) issued a five-tiered “playbook” to continue their fight against the encroachment of NWS from Mexico, a cattle expert and environmental resource advisor sat down with Farm World to discuss worst-case scenarios if the insect were to cross the U.S. border.

Andrew Coppin, co-founder and CEO of Ranchbot, a water technology company that solves water monitoring and water management issues on livestock farms and ranches, also commented on Trump’s call for the U.S. to fall back on Argentine beef imports.

“All roads are leading to supply and demand, with a massive amount of demand and not a lot of supply,” said Coppin, who prior to founding Texas-based water resource management company Ranchbot, spent 25 years working in financial services. “As you know the president has come out with potential strategies, but we haven’t seen any meat on the bone, so to speak, on any of those strategies yet as to what may or may not occur with Argentine beef. I’m sure that will be somewhat divisive for ranchers.”

Many of the southern-state ranchers Coppin has spoken to about NWS consider it a matter of when, not if, the parasite will encroach U.S. borders through airborne transmission. “We can’t build a wall for this, but it is going to result in containment areas that will further restrict the movement of cattle and result in tighter supply yet again. That’s obviously a concern with impacts on pricing; we’ve already taken a million cattle out of the herd by shutting the border to Mexico,” he said.

Once an area is contained or quarantined, it would take rigorous testing of herds before cattle would be allowed to reenter the supply chain. This would likely exacerbate already high retail prices consumers are currently paying for beef.

“It’s great that after five or six years of drought for many producers that prices are high and they are getting the benefit from that,” Coppin said. “It’s not really fair that producers have to really suck it up during the tough times, but in (profitable) times having everyone trying to flood the market with cheaper substitutes. But I still haven’t met any (producers) who want NWS to be a factor in that.”

Coppin credited USDA for its efforts to contain NWS south of the U.S. border in Mexico. With surveillance efforts on both sides of the border, entomologists are gathering data from around 350 collection sites with NWS-specific traps in 10 U.S. counties. “They’re doing everything they can to be vigilant as early as possible. The question then becomes what do we do once it’s here, and stopping the spread of something airborne from getting on a cow, or a trailer or the back of a truck, and moving from one area to another will be hard,” Coppin said.

USDA-APHIS published its “NWS Response Playbook” on Oct. 17, outlining key approaches, resources and tools to implement animal health response activities in the event of a U.S. detection of NWS. According to Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins, the playbook continues USDA’s “five-pronged plan” to keep the NWS south of the U.S. border. “While we continue to aggressively protect the U.S. border and are working with Mexico to stop the pest from continuing to spread further north, we also have to ensure our domestic response plans are ready to activate if needed,” Rollins stated.

According to a USDA news release, the NWS Response Playbook outlines critical response strategies for federal, state, and local responders including how to:

- Effectively manage a coordinated response and communications with stakeholders and the public

- Reduce spread to non-infested animals and prevent NWS from establishing in new areas

- Manage NWS on infested premises

- Implement NWS surveillance and management strategies in wildlife

- Implement NWS fly surveillance and management strategies

- Maintain continuity of business

- Ensure information flow and management

- Identify and maintain resource requirements

“There are a lot of smart people across a lot of agencies working together to negate this thing, and I think the best minds have gathered to try and work through it. It’s a complex problem with no real solution. The ultimate solution would be to breed (NWS) out of existence, but that is just going to take time,” according to Coppin.

NWS maggots can infest livestock and other warm-blooded animals, including humans. They most often enter an animal through an open wound and feed on the animal’s living flesh, according to APHIS. The NWS Response Playbook has been posted to https://www.aphis.usda.gov/animal-emergencies/nws.