Home World Mexican ranchers struggle to adapt as a parasite ravages cattle exports to...

Mexican ranchers struggle to adapt as a parasite ravages cattle exports to the U.S.

A calf is evaluated by a veterinary during a veterinary inspection in Hermosillo, Sonora State, Mexico.

A calf is evaluated by a veterinary during a veterinary inspection in Hermosillo, Sonora State, Mexico. Fernando Llano/AP hide caption

toggle caption

Fernando Llano/AP

HERMOSILLO, Mexico — The United States’ suspension of live cattle imports from Mexico hit at the worst possible time for rancher Martín Ibarra Vargas, who after two years of severe drought had hoped to put his family on better footing selling his calves across the northern border.

Like his father and grandfather before him, Ibarra Vargas has raised cattle on the parched soil of Sonora, the state in northwestern Mexico that shares a long border with the United States, particularly Arizona. His family has faced punishing droughts before but has never before had to contend with the economic hit of a new scourge: the New World Screwworm, a flesh-eating parasite.

U.S. agriculture officials halted live cattle crossing the border in July – the third suspension of the past eight months — due to concerns about the flesh-eating maggot which has been found in southern Mexico and is creeping north.

Sponsor Message

The screwworm is a larva of the Cochliomyia hominivorax fly that can invade the tissues of any warm-blooded animal, including humans. The parasite enters animals’ skin, causing severe damage and lesions that can be fatal. Infected animals are a serious threat to herds.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture calls it a “devastating pest” and said in June that it poses a threat to “our livestock industry, our economy, and our food supply chain.” It has embarked on other steps to keep it out of the United States, which eradicated it decades ago.

As part of its strategy the U.S. is preparing to breed billions of sterile flies and release them in Mexico and southern Texas. The aim is for the sterile males to mate with females in the wild who then produce no offspring.

The U.S. ban on live cattle also applies to horses and bison imports. It hit a ranching sector already weakened by drought and specifically a cattle export business that generated $1.2 billion for Mexico last year. This year, Mexican ranchers have exported fewer than 200,000 head of cattle, which is less than half what they historically send in the same period.

For Ibarra Vargas, considered a comparatively small rancher by Sonora’s beef-centric standards, the inability to send his calves across the border has made him rethink everything.

The repeated bans on Mexican cows by U.S. authorities has pushed his family to branch into beekeeping, raising sheep and selling cow’s milk. What he earns is just a fraction of what he earned by exporting live cattle, but he is trying to hold on through the lean times.

“Tiempos de vacas flacas” — times of the lean cows — as he calls them.

Sponsor Message

“At least it lets us continue” ranching, the 57-year-old said with a white cowboy hat perched on his head.

Reinvent to survive

Even as ranchers in Sonora intensify their efforts to make sure the parasitic fly never makes it into their state, they’ve had to seek new markets.

In the past two months, they’ve sold more than 35,000 mature cows within Mexico at a significant loss.

“We couldn’t wait any longer,” said Juan Carlos Ochoa, president of the Sonora Regional Cattle Union. Those sales, he said, came at a “35% lower price difference compared with the export value of a cow.”

That’s hard to stomach when beef prices in the U.S. are rising.

The U.S. first suspended cattle imports last November. Since then, more than 2,258 cases of screwworm have been identified in Mexico. Treatment requires a mix of manually removing the maggots, healing the lesions on the cows and using anti-parasite medicine.

Some ranchers have also started retail beef sales through luxury butcher shops referred to as “meat boutiques.”

There are other foreign markets, for example Japan, but selling vacuum sealed steaks across the Pacific is a dramatically different business than driving calves to U.S. feedlots. The switch is not easy.

An uncertain future

With his calves mooing as they ran from one end of a small corral to the other waiting to be fed, Ibarra Vargas said he still hasn’t figured out how he will survive an extended period of not being able to send them to the U.S.

The recent two-year drought reduced his cattle stocks and forced him to take on debt to save the small family ranch that has survived for three generations.

Juan Carlos Anaya, director of Agricultural Markets Consulting Group, attributed a 2% drop in Mexico’s cattle inventory last year to the drought.

Anaya said Mexican ranchers who export are trying to get the U.S. to separate what happens in southern Mexico from the cattle exporting states in the north where stricter health and sanitation measures are taken, “but the damage is already done.”

Sponsor Message

“We’re running out of time,” said Ibarra Vargas, who already laments that his children are not interested in carrying on the family business. For a rancher who “doesn’t have a market or money to continue feeding his calves, it’s a question of time before he says: ‘you know what, this is as far as I go.'”

LEAVE A REPLY

Please enter your comment!
Please enter your name here

Must Read

Protesters occupy Microsoft office as company reviews its work with Israel’s military

A Microsoft sign and logo are pictured at the company's headquarters, Friday, April 4, 2025, in Redmond, Wash. Jason Redmond/FR74394 AP hide caption toggle caption Jason Redmond/FR74394 AP REDMOND, Wash. — Police arrested seven people Tuesday after they occupied the office of Microsoft President Brad Smith as part of continued protests over the company's ties

Where do Peace Talks Between Russia and Ukraine Stand?

President Donald Trump greets Russia's President Vladimir Putin Friday, Aug. 15, 2025, at Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson, Alaska. Julia Demaree Nikhinson/AP hide caption toggle caption Julia Demaree Nikhinson/AP President Trump has made clear he’s interested in ending the war Russia has waged on Ukraine. After a flurry of diplomatic meetings with Russian President Vladimir Putin, Ukrainian

Australia accuses Iran of organizing antisemitic attacks and expels ambassador

Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese speaks to the media during a press conference at Parliament House in Canberra, Australia, Tuesday, Aug. 26, 2025. Lukas Coch/AAP Image via AP hide caption toggle caption Lukas Coch/AAP Image via AP MELBOURNE, Australia — Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese accused Iran of organizing two antisemitic attacks in Australia and

Long-elusive Mexican drug lord Ismael ‘El Mayo’ Zambada pleads guilty in U.S.

"El Mayo" Zambada speaks to Judge Brian Cogan (not pictured) in Brooklyn federal court, as his defense attorney Frank Perez looks on, Monday, Aug. 25, 2025, in New York. Jane Rosenberg/AP hide caption toggle caption Jane Rosenberg/AP NEW YORK — Former Mexican cartel kingpin Ismael "El Mayo" Zambada will spend the rest of his life

Uncovering the Secrets of an Irish Home for Unwed Mothers

Amateur historian Catherine Corless spreads birth and death records across her kitchen table in Tuam, Ireland. Through a search of public records, Corless found 796 infants and children died in a nearby mother and baby home between 1925 and 1961. Paulo Nunes Dos Santos/NPR hide caption toggle caption Paulo Nunes Dos Santos/NPR In Ireland, the