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USDA pledges $15.8 million in Farm Bill funding to protect animal health

Projects will help states develop and implement plans to control outbreaks.

USDA

The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) is awarding $15.8 million to 60 projects led by 38 states, land-grant universities and industry organizations to enhance the nation’s ability to rapidly respond to and control animal disease outbreaks. USDA is awarding this funding through the 2018 Farm Bill’s National Animal Disease Preparedness and Response Program (NADPRP).

“Consistent access to safe, healthy, and affordable food is a critical need for all consumers,” said Jenny Lester Moffitt, undersecretary for USDA’s Marketing and Regulatory Programs. “These Farm Bill-funded preparation activities are vital to helping us safeguard U.S. animal health, which in turn allows U.S. producers to continue to feed our country and the world.”

This year, NADPRP funding supports projects focused on enhancing prevention, preparedness, early detection, and rapid response to the most damaging diseases that threaten U.S. livestock. Projects will help states develop and practice plans to quickly control disease outbreaks, train responders and producers to perform critical animal disease outbreak response activities, increase producer use of effective and practical biosecurity measures, educate livestock owners on preventing disease and what happens in an outbreak, and support animal movement decisions in animal disease outbreaks, among others.

Some of the projects funded this year include:

National Incident Command System Capacity Advancement at the Michigan Department of Agriculture and the Multi-State Partnership for Security in Agriculture;
On-Demand Training for foreign animal disease diagnosticians for animal disease response at Texas A&M AgriLife Research;
Targeted Learning Modules for the Poultry Industry on Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza at the University of Minnesota;
Extending a between-farm African swine fever transmission model to estimate the necessary number of sample collectors in a highly swine dense region at North Carolina State University;
Biosecurity Rapid Response Mobile Decontamination/Disinfection Gate for Animal Disease Outbreaks at the Maryland Department of Agriculture; and
Emergency Response Preparedness for Foreign Animal Diseases and Mass Livestock Mortalities at North Dakota State University

In October 2022, APHIS announced the availability of a separate NADPRP funding opportunity for Tribes and Tribal organizations. APHIS continues to review the proposals submitted for this opportunity and plans to award that funding in May.

A full list of NADPRP-funded projects is available on the NADPRP website here.

The 2018 Farm Bill provided NADPRP funding as part of an overall strategy to help prevent animal pests and diseases and reduce the spread and impact of potential disease incursions with the goal or protecting and expanding market opportunities for U.S. agricultural products. Over NADPRP’s 4 years, USDA has provided more than $22 million to support more than 120 projects.

More information about these programs is available here.

Source: USDA