Food & Farming · Saturday, 26 September 2026

01 Briefing what happened

America reopens its biggest cattle crossing from Mexico, closed since last year over a flesh-eating fly. Beef will not get cheaper soon.

Food & Farming 17 sources

The Santa Teresa livestock port in New Mexico, which handled 43% of Mexican cattle imports, reopened on Thursday at half or less of its old flow. The US herd is the smallest in 75 years, and the calves crossing now will not be beef for five to eight months. The same week, immigration operations kept workers away from Kansas meat plants, Europe extended fuel subsidies for farmers and fishermen, and the UN refugee agency said 400 people a day are crossing from Sudan into Chad.

43%

of Mexican cattle imports came through Santa Teresa over the last five years

the biggest livestock inspection port on the border, closed since last year [1]

750 to 1,600

cattle a day expected to cross there now

down from a high of about 3,000 a day before the ban [1]

86.2m

cattle in the United States in January, the fewest in 75 years

ranchers kept shrinking their herds through seven dry years [1]

5 to 8 months

to raise an imported Mexican calf to slaughter weight

so the reopening will not lower beef prices right away, experts say [1]

The lead story — what happened

The United States reopened its biggest livestock inspection port, at Santa Teresa in New Mexico, on Thursday. It had blocked Mexican cattle since last year to keep out New World screwworm. [1]
Screwworm is a fly whose maggots eat the flesh of living animals. It was found in a calf in Texas in June, and the US now counts two active cases, one of them a horse in New Mexico about 160 miles from the port. [1]
Santa Teresa inspected about 43% of Mexican cattle imports over the last five years, according to the US Department of Agriculture. [1]
Between 750 and 1,600 cattle a day are expected to cross there, down from a high of about 3,000 a day, because every animal now goes through treatment rules meant to make sure it carries no maggots. [1]
A smaller port at Douglas, Arizona, reopened a month ago, and about 6,500 cattle have crossed there so far. The department says it will next consider reopening Columbus, New Mexico. [1]
Beef prices will not fall soon. It takes five to eight months to raise an imported Mexican calf to slaughter weight, and US ranchers have kept ever-smaller herds through seven years of dry weather. [1]
The US had 86.2 million cattle in January, the fewest in 75 years, and the import ban helped push ground beef to a record near $7 a pound last month. [1]
New Mexico officials say they feel safe reopening because of the checks at the port, the low US case count, and the department's release of sterile flies wherever a case appears. Cases in Mexico are still climbing. [1]
Texas officials think wild animals spread the pest there. The department has confirmed no wildlife case and its traps have caught no wild flies, which raises questions about how complete its count is. [1]

Before the ban, at its high3,000 cattle a day

Now, top of the expected range1,600 cattle a day

Now, bottom of the expected range750 cattle a day

How many cattle the Santa Teresa port is expected to pass each day, against its old peak.

Who is involved

The US Department of Agriculture

the US government department that inspects livestock at the border; it shut the ports last year and is reopening them one at a time
Jeff Witte

New Mexico's agriculture secretary; he expects 750 to 1,600 cattle a day at Santa Teresa and says the effect on prices is small
Nebraska Cattlemen

a ranchers' group; its marketing chief Jeff Stolle says beef supply will not change any time soon
The New World screwworm

a fly whose maggots eat living flesh; two active US cases, and cases still climbing in Mexico

How it unfolded

Last year the US blocks Mexican cattle imports to keep the fly out [1]
June screwworm is found in a calf in Texas; ranchers and futures markets are rattled [1]
Late Aug the smaller port at Douglas, Arizona reopens; about 6,500 cattle have crossed since [1]
August ground beef hits a record near $7 a pound [1]
Thu 24 Sep Santa Teresa reopens, at half or less of its old daily flow [1]
Next the department considers reopening Columbus, New Mexico [1]

Where this points

The next test is Columbus, New Mexico, which the department says it will consider reopening next; a new case near Santa Teresa is what would put the port's own status back in question. [1]

What is pushing on the whole day

The bar and the word are our reading of how hard each one is pushing today. The arrow is where it is heading. The evidence is in the stories below.

Diesel at a record High↑

Rick Telesz pays about $6 a gallon and his combine burns 150 gallons a day. [3] Drivers in some European countries pay more than $12 a gallon, and EU citizens spend an extra 203 million euros a day on diesel. [4] Middle East diesel exports halved between March and August. [8]

Beef getting scarcer Building↑

The US herd is the smallest in 75 years, and mince reached a record near $7 a pound last month. [1] Plants in Dodge City, Liberal and Garden City in Kansas shut for a time this week when workers stayed home. [2]

Aid money running out High↑

The UN refugee agency has received 18% of the $1.6 billion it needs for Sudan this year, as 400 people a day cross into Chad. [9] Operation End Starvation, a new fund for child malnutrition, says it needs 17 times its $100 million to buy enough food. [10]

Governments paying the fuel bill Building↑

France extended fuel subsidies for farmers and fishermen to the end of the year in a 450 million euro package. [4] Germany renewed a 17-cent-a-litre fuel tax cut from 1 October. [4] Trump backs banning US diesel exports, and his energy secretary says a ban would not work. [7]

Farms losing money High→

Most US row-crop farms are expected to lose money in 2026 for the fourth year running. [3] About 200,000 US farms have closed since 2020, and farm bankruptcies rose 19% in the year to June. [3] Britain's Co-op is matching Aldi's prices to hold shoppers whose confidence has been weak all year. [13]

The rest of the day

11 more stories on this beat.

Each with its own sources. None of these is a link to the story above.

02
Immigration operations keep meat workers home in Kansas

Three cattle groups in Texas, Oklahoma and Kansas said on Friday that immigration operations this week kept workers away from meat plants, feedlots and dairies. [2] Plants in Dodge City, Liberal and Garden City, which each process thousands of cattle a day, shut for a time and sent cattle back to the feedlots. [2] The Kansas Livestock Association says thousands of cattle were delayed and millions of dollars lost. [2] The Department of Homeland Security confirmed its officers are in Kansas but says it is not raiding worksites. [2]

Why it matters — Beef is already at a record because the herd is the smallest in 75 years. A plant that cannot staff its lines processes less, and the Kansas group says a long enough disruption would mean higher prices in shops. [2]
03
Europe pays farmers' fuel while the US argues over exports

France announced a 450 million euro package on Tuesday that extends fuel subsidies for farmers, fishermen and builders to the end of the year. [4] Germany renewed a 17-cent-a-litre cut in fuel tax from 1 October, and Spain extended its cuts, with a step up to 20 cents a litre if fuel inflation passes 15%. [4] Pump prices have passed the equivalent of $12 a gallon in some European countries. [4] The EU buys more and more of its diesel from the US, and its spokesman called a US export ban a bad idea. [4]

Why it matters — A farmer or a fishing skipper cannot add the fuel bill to the price of wheat or cod, so governments are paying part of it for them. The lesson below is about that step.
04
Traders bet US diesel gets stuck at home

US crude oil traded $12.02 a barrel below Brent, the world benchmark, on Thursday, its widest gap since May, as traders priced in a ban on diesel exports. [5] President Trump said on Tuesday he backs a ban. His office denied on Wednesday that a 90-day ban is being prepared, and Energy Secretary Chris Wright says a ban would not bring prices down. [5][7] The US exported a record 1.6 million barrels of diesel a day in August. [6] Wood Mackenzie estimates a ban would fill Gulf Coast storage in about a month and force refiners to cut runs by 12%. [5]

February, before the Iran war1 million barrels a day
August1.6 million barrels a day
US diesel exports, before the war and in August.

Why it matters — Diesel is the fuel of tractors, combines and grain lorries. Analysts say a ban would lower US diesel briefly and raise it everywhere else, including in Europe, which took 41% of its diesel imports from the Middle East last year, a supply that has since halved. [6][8]
05
US crop farmers face a fourth year of losses

Rick Telesz farms 700 acres of corn, soybeans and dairy cows in western Pennsylvania. He expects a good soybean crop and hopes it pays for the fertiliser and fuel he bought in spring. [3] Fertiliser costs 15% more than last year and diesel about 80% more; his combine burns 150 gallons a day. [3] The American Farm Bureau says growers of every major row crop will lose money in 2026, the fourth year in a row. [3] About 200,000 farms have closed since 2020, and farm bankruptcies rose 19% in the year to June. [3]

Diesel80%
Fertiliser15%
How much more a Pennsylvania farmer pays this year than last, by input.

Why it matters — Telesz says a trucker adds fuel to the freight charge and a farmer cannot, so the cost stays with him. China's purchases of US cotton, wheat, pork and beef were devastated in 2025 and have not come back, an economist told the Peterson Institute this week. [3]
06
Four hundred a day cross from Sudan into Chad

More than 400 people a day have crossed from Sudan into eastern Chad over the past week, twenty times the rate of recent months, the UN refugee agency said on Friday. [9] They come from Darfur, Kordofan and Blue Nile, where Sudan's army and the Rapid Support Forces have fought for more than three years, and they describe fleeing bombing and drone attacks. [9] The war has displaced up to 14 million people and ruined harvests. [9] The agency has received 18% of the $1.6 billion it needs this year. [9]

18 of 100
of the $1.6bn the UN refugee agency needs for Sudan this year had arrived
Eighteen of every hundred dollars the agency asked for this year had come in by Friday.

Why it matters — Almost a million Sudanese have crossed into Chad since the war began, 55,000 of them this year. The agency says many who cannot eat there try to move on towards Europe. [9]
07
New funders try to fill the food-aid hole at the UN

Aid groups spent the week of the UN General Assembly in New York looking for money to replace what rich governments cut over the past year. [10] Operation End Starvation was launched this summer with a two-year $100 million commitment from the US State Department. Its head says it needs 17 times that every year to buy enough therapeutic food for starving children, and it won a $5 million Gates Foundation grant on Wednesday. [10] The AP has documented children dying in Myanmar, Nigeria and Somalia after cuts to food rations. [11]

Why it matters — Family offices and Gulf donors are being courted to replace USAID, which a study in The Lancet credits with preventing 91 million deaths in two decades. The new money is smaller, and one charity head calls the effort very ad hoc. [10][11]
08
£2.8m to breed maize that loses less water

Dr John Ferguson, a biologist at the University of Essex, has been given £2.8m over four years by UK Research and Innovation, a government body, to breed high-yielding maize that uses less water. [12] Maize loses about 95% of its water through stomata, tiny pores on the leaf, and earlier research showed plants with fewer pores keep more water and hold their yield in drought. [12] He will breed hybrids with fewer pores without cutting photosynthesis, and hopes they reach subsistence farmers in sub-Saharan Africa. [12] The UN says East Africa takes a fifth of all global food aid. [12]

Why it matters — In 2016 scientists said temperatures were rising faster than new crop varieties were being bred. A maize that drinks less is aimed at the farms that lose harvests first. [12]
09
Britain's Co-op loses more, and prices against Aldi

Co-op Group, the member-owned British retailer with more than 2,500 food shops, reported a £45m underlying operating loss for the six months to 4 July, against £32m a year earlier, after spending more on promotions and stores. [13] Revenue rose 2.4% to £5.6bn. [13] Its interim chief executive says customer confidence has been weak all year, and the group is matching the prices of the discounter Aldi to keep shoppers. [13] It has fixed the price of all its gas, electricity and diesel for this financial year. [13]

Why it matters — A grocer with 2,500 shops fixed the cost of its diesel for a whole year. The farmer supplying it buys at the pump each week, which is one reason a fuel shock lands on the farm first.
10
Indonesia's 2027 budget carries a sugary-drink tax

Indonesia's parliamentary budget committee approved 4,106 trillion rupiah ($231bn) of spending for 2027 on Thursday, with a deficit of 2.4% of GDP; a full vote is due on 29 September. [14] A draft bill alongside it plans an excise tax on sugary drinks; the new finance minister, Suahasil Nazara, declined to give details. [14] Energy subsidies were cut by 11 trillion rupiah to 261.5 trillion, about 6% of spending. [14] Indonesia's government also plans a commodity exchange to set prices and a state export firm to monitor key shipments. [14]

Why it matters — A sugar tax in a country of Indonesia's size reaches every drinks maker selling there. The export firm and the price exchange would put the state between its farm exports and their buyers. [14]
11
Plant-based protein shrinks in Canada and lands in Tesco

Maple Leaf Foods is shutting two of its three plant-protein factories, AgFunderNews' weekly roundup reports. [15] In the same week Impossible Foods made its British retail debut at Tesco, without the heme protein that gives its burgers their colour, and Tesco pledged £20m to a venture fund for better food run by Henry Dimbleby. [15] Elian, a Spanish company, raised 40 million euros to make plant protein in the EU. [15]

Why it matters — Factories closing in Canada and a new brand on British shelves are both signs of a market still finding its size. The roundup gives the events, not the sales figures. [15]
12
The world is far behind on protecting 30% of land and sea

Governments will fall well short of a UN goal to protect 30% of the world's land and sea by 2030, research led by the Campaign for Nature found on Wednesday. [16] Since the Kunming-Montreal agreement of 2022, another 1.3 million sq km of land and 6 million sq km of sea have been protected, but coverage is 20% of land and 10% of sea. [16] If every pledge were kept, land would reach 26% and sea 13%. [16] Only 3.5% of the ocean is counted as effectively protected. [16]

Why it matters — Protected areas are drawn over land and sea that someone farms or fishes, which is one reason pledges are slow to become fences. WWF's Pauli Merriman says a line on a map does not mean protection in the water. [16]

02 Lesson why it matters

Why a farmer cannot add his costs to his price, and a trucker can

Thousands of farmers sell identical corn into one price, so none of them can charge more, while a trucker bills a named customer and adds a line.

The twist

The farmer eats the cost because he is one of thousands selling identical corn. The trucker passes it on because his is the only name on that bill.

The picture

A farmer's cornone world price

A trucker's loadhis price, plus fuel

The farmer's corn is priced with everyone else's corn. The trucker prices his own load, and adds the fuel.

How it works

Corn from one farm is the same as corn from any other
So buyers pay one price for all of it, set by the whole world's supply
The farmer's own diesel bill does not move the price the world pays for corn
A trucker sells a service to a customer who knows him, and adds a fuel charge to the bill
So a cost rise leaves the trucker and stops at the farm

The same force, elsewhere today

Where this chain is also running, in today's other stories.

Rick Telesz's break-even year

he pays $6 a gallon for diesel and sells corn at the market's price; he says a trucker adds fuel to the freight bill and a farmer cannot
France and Spain paying farmers' fuel

where a farmer cannot pass a cost on, the state pays part of it instead: fuel subsidies for farmers and fishermen extended to the end of the year
Meat plants shut by absent workers in Kansas

the packers say less beef processed means dearer beef in shops; the shortfall reaches the shopper, not the plant
Co-op's fixed-price diesel

a retailer with 2,500 shops bought its diesel and power ahead at a set price; a 700-acre farm buys at the pump

Where you've seen this

Fish at the quay

the boat takes the day's auction price; the restaurant prints its own menu

Small oil drillers

a well sells at the world barrel price; the petrol station sets its own margin

Delivery riders

the rider takes the app's rate; the app adds a service fee to the customer

The catch

It flips when sellers are few: a handful of meatpackers or a cartel of oil states can set a price, and a very big farm cooperative sometimes can too.

And the whole of it

The farmer at the pump, the trucker with his surcharge, the packer in Dodge City and the shopper paying $7 for mince are all inside one chain, and each sees only the price in front of them. Nobody at the till can tell which link paid and which link passed it on.

03 Truth what's really going on

What is really going on

The United States reopened its biggest cattle gate to Mexico on Thursday to get more beef, and the same week its immigration officers kept workers away from the Kansas plants that turn cattle into beef, so some of them shut for a time. Neither the gate nor the raids changes the number that sets the price: 86.2 million cattle, the fewest in 75 years.

Why it works on us — A border reopening sounds like more beef next week; the calves crossing on Thursday will not be beef for five to eight months.

Who gains

Feedlots in the US south-west — Cattle crossing at Santa Teresa fill pens that have been running below capacity, New Mexico's agriculture secretary says. [1]
US refiners — They export a record 1.6 million barrels of diesel a day while the ban stays talk, and a voluntary limit would leave the amount to them. [6][7]
Discount grocer Aldi — Co-op now matches Aldi's prices to hold shoppers, which is Aldi setting the price for a rival with 2,500 shops. [13]
The Gates Foundation and Gulf donors — With USAID gone, they choose which food programmes live: a $5 million grant decided Operation End Starvation's week. [10]
European farmers and fishermen — France and Spain extended their fuel subsidies to the end of the year, so part of their diesel bill is paid by the state. [4]

Who pays

US shoppers buying mince — Ground beef is near a record $7 a pound, and the cattle crossing this week will not be beef for five to eight months. [1]
Families in Dodge City, Liberal and Garden City — A community organiser is delivering food to people afraid to leave home, and some plants shut because cleaning crews stopped coming. [2]
Row-crop farmers like Rick Telesz — Diesel up 80% and fertiliser up 15% take the gain from a good crop; growers of every major row crop are expected to lose money for a fourth year. [3]
Sudanese refugees arriving in Chad — With 18% of its budget funded, the UN refugee agency says there is less food, less shelter and less capacity to move people to safer areas. [9]
Europe's taxpayers — Germany's renewed fuel tax cut costs 2.5 billion euros for three months, and EU citizens are spending an extra 203 million euros a day on diesel. [4]

What nobody knows yet

Open questions from across today’s stories — ours included.

01

How many screwworm cases the US really has.

The Department of Agriculture counts two active cases and has confirmed none in wildlife, but Texas officials think wild animals spread it there, and small mammals hide and die where nobody counts them. [1]
02

How the New Mexico horse caught it.

It had not travelled anywhere; state vets are checking whether someone carried the fly into a hunting and trail-riding area. [1]
03

How many people immigration officers have arrested in Kansas this week, and for what.

Homeland Security says it is targeting criminals but gave no breakdown; July data showed more than half of those arrested had no conviction and no charge. [2]
04

Whether the US will ban diesel exports.

Trump backed it on Tuesday, the White House denied a 90-day plan on Wednesday, and the energy secretary is asking refiners for voluntary limits instead. [5][7]
05

How much a ban would raise diesel prices elsewhere.

Economist Philip Verleger says world prices could double; Wood Mackenzie says US storage fills in a month and refiners cut runs 12%; nothing like it has been tried since Nixon's soybean embargo of 1973. [6][5]
06

How many people will leave Sudan for Chad this autumn.

The 400-a-day rate is a week old; the UN refugee agency says many move on towards Europe when they cannot eat in Chad, but gives no forecast. [9]
07

What Indonesia's sugary-drink tax will charge.

The finance minister declined to give details, and the budget still needs a full parliamentary vote on 29 September. [14]
08

How many US farms will close this winter.

Bankruptcies rose 19% in the year to June, but a bankruptcy lawyer says most farmers farm until the bank refuses another loan, and that point has no date. [3]
09

Whether the 30% protection target can be reached at all.

Even full delivery of every pledge reaches 26% of land and 13% of sea, and the official UN progress report is not out until next month. [16]

04 Hope carry this

Ranchers feared screwworm cases would explode after a Texas calf was found with the fly in June. The United States has two active cases, its traps have caught no wild flies, and the biggest cattle crossing on the border reopened on Thursday.

Also true today

A biologist in Essex has £2.8m to breed maize with fewer pores in its leaves, so the plant keeps more of its water in a drought, for farms in sub-Saharan Africa.
In its first two decades this century, USAID's programmes prevented about 91 million deaths, 30 million of them children under five, a study in The Lancet found.