The U.S. Department of Agriculture will spend up to $750 million to build a sterile-fly production plant in Edinburg, Texas, aimed at preventing the flesh-eating New World screwworm from reinfesting the United States. The investment, announced in Austin by Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins alongside Texas Governor Greg Abbott, represents the largest federal initiative yet to shield the nation’s livestock industry from the pest’s northward advance. Designed to produce 300 million sterile screwworm flies each week, the facility would triple current global output and form the core of a broader response that includes an additional $100 million for trapping technologies and the hiring of mounted officers to patrol the border for infested wildlife. Rollins said construction should take two to three years and will be co-located with an existing fly-dispersal site at Moore Air Base. USDA scientists estimate at least 500 million sterile flies must be released weekly to push the parasite back toward Panama. The sole operating plant in Panama produces roughly 100 million flies, while cases continue to rise in Mexico—Yucatán alone has logged 212 infections, and ranchers in central states are reporting maggot-infested cattle for the first time in a generation. Washington suspended imports of Mexican cattle, horses and bison in July to curb the risk of spread. The screwworm was declared eradicated from U.S. soil in 1966, yet a 1972-76 resurgence infested tens of thousands of animals and cost tens of millions of dollars to control. If the fly crosses the Rio Grande again, USDA projects as much as $1.8 billion in economic damage to Texas and warns that tighter cattle supplies could further inflate already-high beef prices. Lawmakers from cattle-producing states welcomed the move, calling the facility critical to national food security. While the plant will not come online immediately, officials said expanding domestic fly production now is essential to stay ahead of a parasite that threatens both ranching operations and wildlife across the southern United States.