The Boll Weevil Challenge

Eradicating this Valley Menace

Our Rio Grande Valley has the distinction of being the final target of a state-wide Boll Weevil Eradication Program. To accomplish the task of freeing our area of this serious menace and its real threat to our economy and agricultural business, the Texas Boll Weevil Eradication Foundation brought in their big guns last week to the La Feria area.

You might ask, what does that mean to me? It means a lot, for those tiny, voracious insects have the potential to wipe out the entire cotton growing industry in the Valley, as it has done elsewhere in the world. There are literally thousands of people in the Valley who depend on cotton production for their livelihood. They range from the producers, the gin operators, the tractor and truck drivers, the farm implement and coop businesses, farm families and Valley merchants who depend directly or indirectly on income from cotton production. Does that answer the question?

To learn more about this state-wide eradication program and its importance to everyone, LA FERIA NEWS met with the Lower Rio Grande Valley Zone Manager of the Texas Boll Weevil Eradication Foundation. His name is S. Edward Herrera. He manages the local operation from his office located at 313 North Stuart Place in Harlingen. You’ll be interested in what he said about his work against this danger from the Boll Weevil and the threat to our cotton industry.

Herrera explained the mission of the organization he manages. He said, “The Texas Boll Weevil Eradication Foundation is a non-profit organization initiated and funded by Texas cotton producers, with oversight from the Texas Department of Agriculture, created to collectively eliminate the costly, cotton Boll Weevil from Texas cotton.”

The eradication campaign in the Valley is a three-pronged attack because this area has special, unique challenges because of our humid, semi-tropical climate and proximity to the Rio Grande. “Besides aerial application with helicopters and fixed-wing aircraft, and land-based spraying, farmers are required to plow under the growing fields promptly after the last cotton-picking,” he said.

“The Valley has a unique year-round growing cycle,”he said, adding, “the Valley can reproduce cotton year round–that’s nice for the producers, But, we don’t have the luxury of a freezing, killing frost like the rest of the state–that‘s the challenge. Right now, we have 37, 473 boll weevil traps scattered throughout the Valley to keep tabs on where application is needed: We‘re gaining, and Valley cotton producers are looking to become more competitive with the world cotton market.”

Herrera has been working with the Eradication Program since 1997. He first tackled the Boll Weevil and Pink Boll Weevil in the Central Plains area of Texas. His work took him next to eradicate the threat in the El Paso area, and he now concentrates on the last area, the Rio Grande Valley and along the river to Laredo, Texas.”

“Our mirror organization in Mexico, known as the Chihuahua Project, has been working closely with us,” he said. “Mexico is just as vulnerable and at risk as we are to the threat to the cotton industry. We have an excellent, cooperative relationship with mutual benefit. I travel regularly to the interior of Mexico to receive and share information with our partners south of the border.”

Readers wanting more information about the Texas Boll Weevil Eradication Program can call (956) 412-3366 or email [email protected].