Why the Screwworm Outbreak Won't Spike Your Beef Prices

As New World screwworm cases climb to 12 nationwide with 11 concentrated in Texas, consumers are watching their grocery bills with understandable anxiety. Memories of last year's avian influenza outbreak—which sent egg prices soaring to nearly $6 per dozen—remain fresh. But agricultural economists say this pest poses a fundamentally different threat, and beef prices should remain stable.

"This thing is not going to affect cattle prices, and it's not going to affect beef production, because not that many animals are involved," said Derrell S. Peel, Oklahoma State University's Extension Livestock Marketing Specialist. "It's not going to kill very many animals."

The distinction lies in how screwworm spreads compared to infectious diseases. Avian influenza moves rapidly through entire flocks, forcing mass culling that disrupts supply chains. Screwworm operates on an entirely different model.

"It affects animals on a one-on-one basis and doesn't spread beyond what the pest itself spreads," Peel explained. "One animal can have it, and an animal right next to it may never be impacted."

Unlike a virus, screwworm is a parasitic pest—the larval stage of a fly that lays eggs in open wounds of warm-blooded animals. The resulting maggots feed on living flesh. While gruesome, the condition is treatable if caught early. Animals typically recover fully with proper veterinary care, meaning infestations don't create the mass mortality events that roil commodity markets.

"The only mortality here is if you just fail to catch an animal in time," Peel noted. "They will die a horrible death in about two weeks if left on their own. But it's not at all comparable to avian influenza because we're not talking about a disease that spreads across an entire population of animals."

The screwworm fly population is also naturally less dense than common flies, further limiting transmission rates. And because the pest affects living animals only—it doesn't survive on carcasses or enter the food supply—there are no food safety implications for consumers.

From a market perspective, the major disruption already occurred. When Secretary Rollins closed southern border ports to livestock trade in July 2025, the resulting supply constraints impacted feeder cattle availability. That shock has largely been absorbed by markets over the intervening months.

For Texas ranchers, the costs are real but localized. Infected animals require intensive monitoring, veterinary treatment, and labor—expenses that hit individual operations without rippling through national pricing. The USDA's emergency response, including the newly announced federal funding for additional inspectors and the $750 million sterile fly facility under construction in Edinburg, aims to contain the outbreak before it can threaten broader market stability.

The sterile insect technique—releasing irradiated male flies that mate with wild females but produce no offspring—has proven effective over decades of eradication efforts. This biological approach, combined with increased inspection capacity and quarantine protocols, gives agricultural officials confidence that the outbreak can be controlled without consumer price impacts.

For now, shoppers can expect beef prices to follow normal seasonal patterns rather than spike on screwworm fears. The real battle is being fought in pastures and inspection stations across South Texas, where the focus remains on eradication rather than market management.