§3195 Continuing animal health and disease, food security, and stewardship research, education, and extension programs

Summary

In every State that has one or more accredited veterinary colleges, the college deans and the director of the State agricultural experiment station must make a single, statewide animal health and disease research plan. They must base the plan on each eligible institution’s research ability, send it to the Secretary for approval, and use it to decide how the State’s funds are split. Money given to eligible institutions can only pay for doing animal health research, publishing results, helping pay certain employee retirement costs (section 331), planning and management, and buying needed equipment and supplies. The Secretary must try to get institutions to work together by holding regular regional and national meetings. The Secretary must give competitive grants to eligible institutions (State cooperative institutions and NLGCA institutions) to study important animal agriculture needs. Research can cover food security topics like better feed and energy use, linking genomics and related sciences to animal production, better reproduction, and safer pre‑ and post‑harvest food systems. It can also cover animal–human health topics like new vaccine approaches, controlling diseases that jump from animals to people, improving animal health through feed, and improving product quality and nutrition. Grant work must result in tools and public information based on sound science. The Secretary will set rules to accept proposals, review them with industry input, have peer review panels of Federal, academic, State, and industry experts, and award grants on merit, quality, and relevance. Congress allowed $25,000,000 for each fiscal year 2014 through 2023 to run this program. The Secretary must set aside at least $5,000,000 of each year’s money for the capacity and infrastructure program. After that reservation, 15% of the remaining money goes to capacity and infrastructure and 85% goes to competitive grants. Of the capacity and infrastructure money, 4% stays with the Department of Agriculture for administration, 48% is split among States based on the value and income from domestic livestock, poultry, and commercial aquaculture species (using the most current inventory of cattle, sheep, swine, horses, poultry, and commercial aquaculture species), and 48% is split based on each State’s animal health research capacity as determined by the Secretary. If a State’s share by value and income is more than its share by capacity, the extra can be used, at the Secretary’s choice, for remodeling, new buildings, or hiring to grow research capacity. When a new accredited veterinary college opens, or when several States support a regional college, the Secretary will reallocate funds among the schools based on their research capacity and the cooperating States’ combined value and income.