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Funding was recently cut but this infestation has been building for years. The key failure that caused this current outbreak was during COVID. The lockdowns shu
by throwup238 1y ago
Funding was recently cut but this infestation has been building for years. The key failure that caused this current outbreak was during COVID. The lockdowns shut down both the release flights by the US and the mosquito breeding facilities in Latina America, grinding the whole pest control program to a halt.
- Noumenon72 1y agoSomeone must have decided they weren't "essential". Big mistake.
- andsoitis 1y agoNot essential. We can eat less beef. Better for health, the environment.
- kristjansson 1y agoAnd we should encourage that by leveraging the response to a natural disaster to advance your particular policy goals?
- ajmurmann 1y agoDoesn't this impact wildlife as well? Apparently the Florida Key Deer was threatened by this a decade ago: https://www.avma.org/javma-news/2017-01-15/screwworm-infestation-kills-endangered-deer https://www.avma.org/javma-news/2017-01-15/screwworm-infesta...
- Numerlor 1y agoScrewworm also infects wildlife and occasionally humans, it's really not something you want to have in the area if you can help it
- 20after4 1y agoIt sounds like it's more than occasionally infecting humans: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/global-health/science-and-disease/man-eater-screw-worm-parasite-honduras-central-america/ https://www.telegraph.co.uk/global-health/science-and-diseas...
- raverbashing 1y agoFunny, you don't seem to have beef with the worm eating beef But it can and does infect humans and other animals
- AlecSchueler 1y agoThey didn't say they had beef with anyone eating beef.
- lazide 1y agoScrewworms will eat people too, if allowed to. You really don’t want them in your area.
- SoftTalker 1y agoAlready happening. Beef is rapidly becomming unaffordable. A steak at the supermarket is >$20. Can't imagine what they cost at a restaurant. I've switched to mostly turkey, chicken, and pork.
- alephnerd 1y agoThat's due to issues around monopolization in the Dairy and Cattle industry in the US [1]. 70% of all processors in the dairy and cattle industry are now owned by 3 companies. Processors don't own cattle - they just process raw material like dairy and meat into cheese and pasteurized milk and handle the entire supply chain. But because they control the supply chain, distribution, and even the feed [0] used they can set rates and vendors used by farmers. I posted an article about this earlier on HN, but it seems HNers like to talk about antitrust for search engines and not dairy and beef production. Antitrust for me, oligopolic market forces for thee. [0] - https://www.landolakesinc.com/what-we-do/animal-nutrition/ https://www.landolakesinc.com/what-we-do/animal-nutrition/ [1] - https://www.thebullvine.com/news/will-your-dairy-farm-survive-the-next-decade-the-brutal-math-of-consolidation/ https://www.thebullvine.com/news/will-your-dairy-farm-surviv... ___________ To u/andrew_lettuce below: Canada has the exact same issue of processor consolidation and oligopoly in agriculture as the US [0][1][2] Arguably, it's worse than the US because this process started in the 1990s in Canada [3] versus the 2010s in the US. [0] - https://ca.rbcwealthmanagement.com/terrence-galarneau/blog/4599086-Supply-Management-Explained https://ca.rbcwealthmanagement.com/terrence-galarneau/blog/4... [1] - https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC7350140/ https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC7350140/ [2] - https://financialpost.com/commodities/agriculture/why-only-three-meat-packing-plants-process-the-vast-majority-of-canadas-beef https://financialpost.com/commodities/agriculture/why-only-t... [3] - https://www.eap.mcgill.ca/MagRack/RH/RH_E_97_05.htm https://www.eap.mcgill.ca/MagRack/RH/RH_E_97_05.htm
- gruez 1y agoIs this supported by the data? During the pandemic people were also blaming "monopolization" or "consolidation" for the rise in grocery prices, but in reality the margins of publicly traded supermarket companies went up by a percentage point or two.
- VaderLied 1y ago[dead]
- alephnerd 1y ago> Better for health, the environment. India has an equally large cattle industry that outproduces American dairy and cattle, yet their industry has a fraction of the carbon and methane impact as American dairy and cattle rearing [0] because the feed used in Indian industry is crop residue instead of industrialized meat+grain mixtures. American Ag is hyperconsolidated into 3 processors [1] which makes it difficult for innovations to develop, whereas an equally large country like India has 228 local run dairy cooperatives and multiple private sector players each generating around $500M-2B in revenue. Yet, the comments I'm seeing here on HN (and with those who I chatted with at the state level Dems) are reminiscent to those who blamed autoworkers and coalworkers for not learning to code back in 2014. If someone like me who has been somewhat hesitant about Lina Khan until after getting deep into the dairy industry recently, I think HNers should recognize the value this train of thought can have in 2026 and 2028. 84% of Americans consume dairy or dairy alternative (still synthesized using dairy) products [2] - don't make this yet another culture war topic [0] - https://www.thebullvine.com/dairy-industry/from-extinction-to-empire-can-u-s-dairy-learn-from-indias-white-revolution/ https://www.thebullvine.com/dairy-industry/from-extinction-t... [1] - https://www.thebullvine.com/news/will-your-dairy-farm-survive-the-next-decade-the-brutal-math-of-consolidation/ https://www.thebullvine.com/news/will-your-dairy-farm-surviv... [2] - https://www.mckinsey.com/industries/agriculture/our-insights/similar-yet-different-meet-todays-consumer-of-dairy-and-alternatives https://www.mckinsey.com/industries/agriculture/our-insights...
- gruez 1y ago>India has an equally large cattle industry that outproduces American dairy and cattle That's a tad misleading. The statistics I could find only says that India outproduces the US in dairy, not beef. Rounding >yet their industry has a fraction of the carbon and methane impact as American dairy and cattle rearing [0] I did a cursory search in your source for "carbon" and "methane" and couldn't find anything to back this claim, only vague claims about how India does "Regenerative farming" and is therefore "low methane". >because the feed used in Indian industry is crop residue instead of industrialized meat+grain mixtures. That's not scalable and only works because the country is poor and beef/dairy consumption isn't high. There's no way you can supply American level demand for beef/dairy by only using crop residue. >American Ag is hyperconsolidated into 3 processors which makes it difficult for innovations to develop, whereas an equally large country like India has 26 state run dairy cooperatives and multiple private sector players. You can easily tell an opposite story about how consolidate companies have bigger budgets for R&D and capital projects, as opposed to 26 cooperatives each trying to implement some sort of strategy.
- zahlman 1y agoScrewworms will also infect humans, with horrific and potentially fatal consequences.
- FpUser 1y ago>"Not essential. We can eat less beef. Better for health, the environment." We can also live in a cave, better for the environment.
- f1shy 1y agoOr just dissapear (which btw, no joking, is what some people propose)
- spamizbad 1y agoI guess nature is “finding a way” after all…
- artursapek 1y ago125lb take
- ben_w 1y agoWhile I am a vegetarian and thus am an existence proof, there's multiple different ways in which something can be "essential". Anyone going "let's stop a thing today which will messes with a non-trivial fraction of our food production in a few years' time, without preparing either that food sector nor the dietary choices of the consumers before that happens" is definitely making a high-risk strategic choice.
- footlose_3815 1y agoTwice
- delfinom 1y agoThe funding was never cut. That was misinfo spread by morons because there was a typical Trump dispute of "mexico will pay for it". But the reality was that was in talks of a Mexico specific coverage program. The Panama program was never touched and is run by a third party agency with stakes holders consisting of the USDA and Panama government. But yes the current outbreak built up since COVID.
- fc417fc802 1y agoSo funding was never cut, but actually some subset did experience cuts? Which is it? We're taking about Mexico to US trade here so the Mexico specific subprogram seems directly relevant.
- throwaway5752 1y agoQuestion, are they morons? Is your disagreement with them really that simple? Was it necessary to call them that? I don't like posting this comment, because it will be distracting and tone policing. I was just going to downvote and flag your comment and move on, but I think you offered some valuable information about the policy and I'd like to hear more without the divisive parts that add less value.
- timr 1y agoFrom the other link on the front page about this subject [1]: > Illegal cattle smuggling, long considered one of the most efficient money-laundering routes for the drug cartels which terrorised San Pedro Sula, is regarded as the main reason for the accelerating advance. Up to 800,000 cattle a year are illicitly raised in nature reserves, such as the UNESCO-protected Rio Platano Biosphere in Honduras, and then smuggled by boat and truck up to Mexico. The flies, of course, travel with the livestock, embedded in cattle hides, accelerating their advance. > “Everything indicates that illegal cattle routes from Central America are the arteries through which the screw worm is circulating again toward Mexico,” wrote Jeremy Radachowsky, director for Mesoamerican and the Western Caribbean at the Wildlife Conservation Society, in a recent paper. So for those who keep trying to make the connection, it has little, if anything, to do with US politics. Meanwhile, I had no idea that cattle smuggling was a money-laundering route for drug cartels. TIL! [1] https://www.telegraph.co.uk/global-health/science-and-disease/man-eater-screw-worm-parasite-honduras-central-america/ https://www.telegraph.co.uk/global-health/science-and-diseas...
- fc417fc802 1y ago> So for those who keep trying to make the connection, it has little, if anything, to do with US politics. I follow your intended meaning (USAID & etc cuts). But taken literally it's US policies and propaganda that enable the drug cartels. Our dysfunctions are still ultimately the root of the problem.
- 0xDEAFBEAD 1y agoThe world is complex and interdependent. The US, being a powerful and influential country, has direct or indirect involvement in pretty much everything. That doesn't mean we are to blame for everything.
- fc417fc802 1y agoI agree. We certainly aren't at fault for the existence of organized crime in general. However our aggressively exported drug policy is very obviously the root that props up the Mexican and South American drug cartels (among others). There's decades of academic literature and economic analysis on this point. When a parasite is spreading due to a large scale money laundering tactic by a large scale criminal enterprise whose scale is only enabled by our policy I class that as yet another own goal of the war on drugs. These downstream effects are somewhat non obvious so I think it's worthwhile to point them out when they come up.