KNOXVILLE, Tenn. – The Tennessee Boll Weevil Eradication Program (BWEP) held a meeting this week at the West Tennessee AgResearch and Education Center in Jackson, Tenn.

Even though the boll weevil has been eradicated in every state except the etreme southern part of Texas, the foundation meets as a precautionary measure. 

“Our eradication foundation exists as a precautionary measure,” said Boyd Barker, BWEP administrator at the Tennessee Department of Agriculture. “We should probably re-name it to avoid this confusion because we’ve not captured a boll weevil in Tennessee in 13 years.

“We do this for two reasons. First, to make sure the boll weevil doesn’t move in by artificial means, by way of train, car or truck. After all, there’s a lot of traffic coming here from Texas. Second, to prove to other states where our products are shipped that we, indeed, do not have boll weevils here.”

Tennessee’s boll weevil eradication program is part of a nationwide effort to rid the cotton belt of the costliest insect in the history of American agriculture. By 1950, the boll weevil wasestimated to have cost U.S. cotton producers $10 billion.

The boll weevil is not much to look at. It’s just a grayish, little beetle with an impressively long snout. But this particular beetle, and its hunger for cotton, was powerful enough to forge an unprecedented partnership among farmers, legislators and scientists. And that partnership showed how much can be accomplished when scientists and farmers work together.

Boll Weevils entered the United States from Mexico in 1892, when they were first spotted in Texas. By the 1920s they had spread through all the major cotton-producing areas in the country. At one time, one-third of the insecticide used in the U.S. was used to combat boll weevils.

In 1958, The National Cotton Council of America agreed on a piece of farm legislation that called for cotton research to be expanded and the boll weevil to be eliminated.

This was an unusual step for many reasons. First, efforts had been made to eradicate insects in livestock before, but no one had ever tried it with a crop pest. Second, this was going to cost a lot of money, which would require the support of the federal government. Third, no one had yet come up with a way to eradicate the insect. Finally, once eradication began, the eradication process would become a common pool resource.

By the 1960s, researchers were just beginning to understand the importance of insect pheromones, the chemicals produced by insect species that change behavior of other individuals in the same species. A perfect synthetic attractant pheromone blend was created, a lure that could be used to trap the amorous boll weevils. This was considered the linchpin for successful eradication, as weevils could be attracted, trapped and monitored.

Test pilot programs were performed in the early 1970s in Alabama, Mississippi and Louisiana with great success. And by 2009, the boll weevil was declared eradicated in all U.S. cotton-producing states, with one exception: Texas, which remains the biggest cotton producer in the country.

Eradication efforts have been stalled at the Texas-Mexican border, largely due to the instability created by illegal drug trafficking. This instability has effectively made large cotton farms in Mexico inaccessible for treatment, creating a welcoming habitat for boll weevil populations to rebound. As a result, there is an ongoing battle to keep boll weevils in check in the Lower Rio Grande Valley of Texas, funded by an ongoing annual assessment from cotton-producing states, which is aimed at preventing the spread of boll weevil populations.

Boll weevil eradication programs in many southern states like the one in Tennessee are ongoing as a precaution. In fact, boll weevil traps have become ubiquitous across cotton farms, so much that they may go unnoticed to some.

In Georgia, Alan Lowman heads up the Georgia BWEP. “We position the traps strategically across the cotton-producing regions of Georgia to create a safety blanket, so to speak,” Lowman said. “Each trap is important, as we all rely on them to keep check on something none of us in cotton wants to deal with again, the boll weevil.”

The boll weevil was officially considered eradicated from Georgia in 1990.

“Our goal is to keep the program running as efficiently as possible,” Lowman said. “We go trapping each season, and each year we hope we don’t catch anything, but we hope we don’t miss anything, too.”

BWEPs in each state are a cooperative effort between state and national grower groups and public institutions across the cotton belt. Cotton growers across the country still contribute to the National Boll Weevil Protection Fund. Each state’s foundation contributes to the national effort.

“The boll weevil still lives on planet earth and that’s why the program remains essential as a check, and so does national cooperation,” said Bart Davis, chairman of the Georgia Cotton Commission. “The people who may not have been around growing cotton back when the weevil was a problem may not understand just how bad it was or how costly it was to make cotton profitably in our area at that time.”