The number of confirmed New World screwworm cases in the United States has climbed to 27 animals as of June 29, nearly all of them in Texas, while the cattle futures market, which includes the state’s $15 billion cattle sector, is nearing all-time highs.
The detections, which began with a single calf in Zavala County on June 3, have so far stayed within domestic livestock, and their clearest economic mark to date is the upward pressure they add to an already historically tight cattle market, according to reporting compiled by Barchart and the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s June supply-and-demand estimates.
The screwworm’s arrival has landed on a market already near record territory. Barchart reported that CME live cattle futures set an all-time high of about $2.566 per pound in May 2026 before easing to roughly $2.47 in June, while feeder cattle futures, which peaked near $3.828 per pound in October 2025, slipped to just under $3.70 by June 22.
Both contracts, Barchart noted, remain in bullish trends that stretch back more than six years, supported by a U.S. cattle inventory at its lowest level in decades and by the closure of southern ports to Mexican livestock that the USDA’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service confirms is still in effect.
Analysts framing the screwworm’s likely price effect describe it as a force that tightens supply further rather than one that triggers a consumer scare. Beef Magazine, in analysis cited by Barchart, argued that the outbreak is “bullish for the cattle market, as it will only tighten an already tight supply,” with the cow-calf sector in the Southern United States most exposed because newborn calves with fresh navels and recently calved cows are especially vulnerable.
The same analysis cautioned that producer costs for veterinary care and treatment will rise and that elevated health risk makes ranchers less likely to spend on bred heifers to expand herds, a dynamic it said “kicks the can down the road on any meaningful herd rebuilding.”
That trajectory contrasts sharply with the last major animal-disease shock to the cattle market. As Barchart recounted, the first U.S. case of bovine spongiform encephalopathy, or mad cow disease, in December 2003 sent live cattle futures down 28.3 percent and feeder cattle down 26.7 percent within weeks as consumer demand collapsed.
Screwworm has produced the opposite reaction, the outlet noted, because federal and state officials, including the Texas Animal Health Commission, stress that the pest is a threat to live animals and not a food-safety issue; infested meat does not enter the food supply.
The USDA’s own forecast suggests a measured near-term impact. In its June 11 World Agricultural Supply and Demand Estimates report, the department acknowledged the Texas detections and the resulting quarantines and movement controls, raised its second-quarter 2026 cattle-price forecast on the strength of May prices, but left prices for the remainder of 2026 and into 2027 unchanged.
The report projected higher 2027 beef production as more cattle placed in feedlots become available for slaughter, an indication that the agency does not currently model the outbreak as a sustained price driver beyond the immediate quarter.
The market backdrop sits alongside a still-expanding case map. The APHIS confirmed-detections dashboard counted 25 animal cases as of June 26, of which 22 were active, with no wildlife, feral-animal, or wild-fly trap detections recorded, before reporting yesterday pushed the figure to 27.
On the supply side of the response, USDA Secretary Brooke Rollins helped inaugurate a converted sterile-fly plant in Metapa, Mexico, on June 27, a facility the department says will ramp toward tens of millions of sterile flies per week to supplement releases over the affected Texas zones.