Texas Gov. Greg Abbott expressed concern Friday that a new factory isn't expected to start breeding sterile New World screwworm flies for more than a year as a big part of the effort to stop its flesh-eating larvae from threatening the $113 U.S. billion cattle industry.
Abbott pledged Texas will help the U.S. Department of Agriculture accelerate construction of the $750 million breeding facility outside Edinburg, Texas, about 20 miles (32 kilometers) north of the U.S.-Mexico border. He said Texas is willing to spend its own funds to see that construction is "24 hours a day, seven days a week."
Without greater sterile fly production, Abbott said during a news conference in the state capital of Austin, "We cannot make it through a second summer."
