USDA Mission to Travel to Mexico With Eye Toward Lifting Cattle Import Suspension, Mexico Says

By Adriana Barrera

MEXICO CITY, May 27 (Reuters) – A mission representing the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) will travel to Mexico in the coming days, Mexico’s agriculture ministry said on Tuesday, and could then lift its suspension of Mexican cattle imports.

The U.S. had suspended the imports on an outbreak of the New World screwworm, an insect which burrows into livestock and can kill them.

Mexico has rolled out measures meant to combat the spread of the pest, the ministry said in a statement, adding U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins had expressed her satisfaction with them in a video call with her Mexican counterpart on Tuesday.

The U.S. will also provide $21 million to renovate a plant in southern Mexico to boost production of sterile screwworm flies, the USDA said, which will reduce the mating population of the wild flies.

The USDA cautioned that the current import restrictions remain in place and that it will re-evaluate them every 30 days.

(Reporting by Adriana Barrera; Editing by Sarah Morland)