On Aug. 15, 2025, the U.S. Department of Agriculture will spend up to $750 million to build a facility in Texas that produces sterile flies to fight the flesh-eating livestock pest New World screwworm, Secretary Brooke Rollins said on Friday.

The plan signals increasing worries about the risk of screwworm, a parasitic fly that eats livestock and wildlife alive, to infest U.S. cattle after the pest moved north in Mexico toward the U.S. border.

An outbreak could further elevate record-high U.S. beef prices by reducing the U.S. cattle supply.

In Texas, the largest cattle-producing state, ranchers are anticipating the return of screwworm for the first time in decades. The United States eliminated screwworm in the 20th century by flying planes over hotspots to drop boxes packed with sterile flies.

The production plant in Edinburg, Texas, would be located with a previously announced sterile fly dispersal facility at Moore Air Base and be able to produce 300 million sterile screwworm flies per week, Rollins said. Sterile flies reduce the mating population of the wild flies.