Editing Boll weevil (section)

==Infestation==
[[image:Anthonomus grandis 1233023.jpg|thumb|Cotton boll with weevil larvae.]]
The insect crossed the [[Rio Grande]] near [[Brownsville, Texas]], to enter the United States from Mexico in 1892<ref name="msstate"/> and reached southeastern [[Alabama]] in 1909. By the mid-1920s, it had entered all cotton-growing regions in the U.S., traveling 40 to 160 miles per year. It remains the most destructive cotton pest in North America. Since the boll weevil entered the United States, it has cost U.S. cotton producers about $13 billion, and in recent times about $300 million per year.<ref name="msstate">Economic impacts of the boll weevil: {{cite web|url=http://www.bollweevil.ext.msstate.edu/history.html|title=History of the Boll Weevil in the United States |author=Mississippi State University}}</ref>

The boll weevil contributed to Southern farmers' economic woes during the 1920s, a situation exacerbated by the [[Great Depression]] in the 1930s.

The boll weevil appeared in [[Venezuela]] in 1949 and [[Colombia]] in 1950.<ref name="ICAC">{{cite web | url = http://www.icac.org/Projects/CommonFund/Boll/proj_03_proposal.pdf | title = Integrated Pest Management Of The Cotton Boll Weevil In Argentina, Brazil, And Paraguay | author = ICAC | access-date = 2007-02-20 | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20061005064716/http://www.icac.org/projects/CommonFund/Boll/proj_03_proposal.pdf | archive-date = 2006-10-05 | url-status = dead }}</ref> The [[Amazon Rainforest]] was thought to present a barrier to the insect's further spread, until it was detected in [[Brazil]] in 1983. An estimated 90% of the cotton farms in Brazil are now infested. During the 1990s, the weevil spread to [[Paraguay]] and [[Argentina]]. The [[International Cotton Advisory Committee]] (ICAC) has proposed a control program similar to that used in the U.S.<ref name="ICAC"/>