§3195 Continuing Animal Health and Disease, Food Security, and Stewardship Research, Education, and Extension Programs

Summary

States that have one or more accredited veterinary colleges must have the college deans and the state agricultural experiment station director work together to make a statewide animal health and disease research plan. They must send that plan to the Secretary for approval and the plan will guide how the State’s money is shared. Money given to eligible institutions may only pay for research costs, publishing and sharing results, certain employee retirement payments, planning and administration, and the equipment and supplies needed for the research. The Secretary must encourage schools to work together by holding regular regional and national meetings. The Secretary will also award competitive grants to address urgent animal agriculture needs. Grants fund research to improve food security (for example, feed and energy use, linking genomics and related sciences to production, reproduction, and food safety) and to study animal–human health links (for example, new vaccine approaches, zoonosis and food safety, health through feed, and product quality and nutrition). Grantees must create and share tools and information from that research. Eligible grant recipients are State cooperative institutions and NLGCA institutions. The Secretary will set rules to accept proposals, review them with industry input, have scientific peer review by experts from federal agencies, universities, state animal health agencies, and industry, and award grants based on merit, quality, and relevance. Congress authorized $25,000,000 for each fiscal year 2014 through 2023. The Secretary must reserve at least $5,000,000 of that each year for capacity and infrastructure. After that reserve, 15% of the remaining funds go to capacity and infrastructure and 85% go to competitive grants. Of the capacity and infrastructure money, 4% is kept by the Department of Agriculture for administration, 48% is split among States by the value and income from livestock, poultry, and commercial aquaculture in each State, and 48% is split by the States’ animal health research capacity as determined by the Secretary. If a State’s value-based share is bigger than its capacity-based share, the extra can be used, at the Secretary’s choice, for building, remodeling, or hiring to grow research capacity. When a new accredited veterinary college opens, or when States jointly support a regional accredited veterinary college, the Secretary will adjust how the State funds are divided based on each institution’s research capacity and the cooperating States’ combined livestock, poultry, and aquaculture values.