APHIS opens $80 million in animal-disease preparedness grants; livestock groups and states have until Jan. 7
The money comes from the 2025 reconciliation law, which raised mandatory funding for three animal-health programs from $30 million a year to $233 million. Half of the new grant money is reserved for producer and veterinary organizations.
In one round of grants, the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) is offering $80 million for animal-disease preparedness projects. From fiscal 2020 through 2024, the same program awarded $54.4 million across 256 projects[1, 7]. APHIS opened both funding opportunities on November 5. Applications are due January 7, 2027, and half the money is open only to livestock, poultry and aquaculture producer organizations and veterinary groups[1, 2].
What changed
The money comes from Section 10607(a) of the 2025 reconciliation law, P.L. 119-21, signed July 4, 2025[5]. That section rewrote the funding clause of the Animal Health Protection Act. For each of fiscal years 2026 through 2030, it requires $233 million a year from the Commodity Credit Corporation. Of that, at least $10 million goes to the National Animal Health Laboratory Network (NAHLN), at least $70 million to the National Animal Disease Preparedness and Response Program (NADPRP), and at least $153 million to the National Animal Vaccine and Veterinary Countermeasures Bank (NAVVCB)[5, 6]. For fiscal 2023 through 2025 the total was $30 million a year, with at least $18 million for NADPRP[6].
APHIS’s November 5 release calls the increase “transformational”[1]. It is also temporary under current law. Starting in fiscal 2031 the statute drops funding to $75 million a year, with at least $45 million for NADPRP and no set amount for the lab network or the vaccine bank[6].
The 2018 farm bill created NADPRP and the vaccine bank and gave the lab network mandatory funding[7]. The new amounts are written into the Animal Health Protection Act itself, so they do not depend on extending the 2018 farm bill[5, 6]. Commodity Hill’s November 5 report sets out which farm bill authorities did lapse. The industry notice describes its own money as coming through both the reconciliation law and the 2018 farm bill[2].
Who can apply for the $80 million, and how APHIS will score it
APHIS is running fiscal 2026 and 2027 NADPRP money as one combined spending plan. The $80 million is split evenly between two cooperative-agreement competitions[1].
Industry Preparedness (Opportunity No. USDA-APHIS-10025-VSSP0000-27-0001). Up to $40 million. APHIS expects 15 to 20 awards of $500,000 to $4 million each[2]. Eligible applicants are “State or national livestock, poultry, or aquaculture producer organizations with direct and significant economic interest” in production, plus veterinary organizations and specialty boards recognized by the American Veterinary Medical Association[2]. Each organization may submit up to three applications, though APHIS asks each to submit a single proposal covering all its work[2]. The notice lists five priority topics: communication on foreign animal disease (FAD), training and exercises, biosecurity, animal movement and continuity of business, and applied research[2].
State Preparedness (Opportunity No. USDA-APHIS-10025-VSSP0000-27-0002). Up to $40 million, in about 40 awards of $500,000 to $2 million[3]. This track is limited to state departments of agriculture, state animal health officials and regional response groups. The notice names four regional groups as examples: the Multi State Partnership for Security in Agriculture, the New England States Animal Agriculture Security Alliance, the Southern Agriculture & Animal Disaster Response Alliance and the Western Alliance for Security in Animal Agriculture[1, 3]. Its priority list adds equipment stockpiles, traceability with radio-frequency identification (RFID) infrastructure, and state data sharing[3].
Under both tracks, no cost share is required, indirect costs are limited to 10% of total project costs or the applicant’s negotiated indirect cost rate, and projects must finish within 36 months[2, 3]. Applications go through ezFedGrants. The notices warn that a new SAM.gov registration can take up to 10 business days and an ezFedGrants profile up to another 10[2].
To apply on either track, an organization needs a Login.gov account, an ezFedGrants account and an active SAM.gov entity registration. The package itself is a project work plan and financial plan on new templates approved by the Office of Management and Budget, the SF-424 and SF-424A forms, and a lobbying certification for any request over $100,000[4]. Questions go to the program mailbox, vs.nadprp@usda.gov[4].
Industry proposals are scored on four weighted criteria: alignment and purpose (35%), project design and feasibility (25%), budget and resource justification (20%) and expected impact (20%)[2]. A proposal that clears the expert panel then goes through an administrative review, where APHIS weighs geographic spread and overlap with projects already paid for by other federal awards[2]. Winners file semiannual performance reports and SF-425 financial reports through ezFedGrants, each due 30 days after the reporting period closes[2].
The rest of the combined NADPRP plan is $15 million to continue ongoing projects, $15 million for ad hoc needs, and $20 million for initiatives led by APHIS itself[1].
In the barn and the sale barn
The industry track is where a cattle, hog, dairy or poultry association can propose its own work. The biosecurity topic explicitly covers “backyard operations and livestock commingling sites (e.g., markets and auctions),” along with transportation[2]. The animal-movement topic asks for faster, more accurate movement data “particularly for animals having moved through a livestock market and other livestock aggregation locations”[2]. For sale barns, the traceability priority gets specific: it names electronic identification (EID) panel readers at markets and other concentration points, links between EID and sales software, and the tags themselves[2]. Under communications, APHIS lists raising the number of premises with premises identification numbers so that FAD response can move faster[2]. Applied research projects should have outcomes with “clear and direct value to livestock producers during an animal disease outbreak,” such as depopulation, disposal, decontamination and safe animal movement[2]. The notice’s research list includes carcass disposal in bad weather, heat-inactivation systems for cleaning trucks and trailers, and ways to track the movement of animals vaccinated against FMD during and after an outbreak[2].
The release names the diseases driving the spending: New World screwworm, highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI), African swine fever and foot-and-mouth disease (FMD). It adds the Asian longhorned tick and Theileria orientalis Ikeda, a tick-borne parasite that it says causes “a severe and currently untreatable disease in cattle”[1]. CRS put USDA spending on the HPAI outbreak in poultry at more than $1.4 billion as of November 2024, $1.25 billion of it in indemnity and compensation[7].
For cattle and hog producers, the largest line is the vaccine bank. The statute requires USDA to give priority to FMD vaccine and diagnostics[6]. APHIS says it has put more than $85 million into the bank since fiscal 2020 and will add over $153 million in fiscal 2027 “for FMD vaccine antigen concentrate and diagnostic test kits or other countermeasures”[1]. That one-year purchase is close to twice the bank’s spending to date. The release does not say what fiscal 2026 vaccine bank money bought[1].
The lab network received $10 million in noncompetitive fiscal 2026 funding and will get another $10 million in fiscal 2027 for operational support[1]. In 2023, network labs ran an estimated 430,500 diagnostic tests[7].
On the Hill
None of this needs a farm bill or an appropriation. The money is mandatory Commodity Credit Corporation spending through fiscal 2030[5, 6]. The fiscal 2031 drop to $75 million is the date that matters for Congress: unless a later law changes it, the vaccine bank and lab network lose their set amounts that year[6].
Two points in the APHIS documents do not line up. First, the release says selected projects “will begin in spring 2027”[1], but both funding notices put the anticipated start between July 1 and August 31, 2027, with award notices within 150 days of the deadline[2, 3]. Second, the statute requires at least $70 million a year for NADPRP, or $140 million over the two years[6]. The combined plan in the release adds up to $130 million[1]. None of the APHIS documents explains the $10 million difference.
What to watch
- November 24, 2026: APHIS applicant webinar, noon to 1:30 p.m. EST. APHIS says the recording and slides will be posted a week later[4].
- January 7, 2027, 11:59 p.m. ET: Applications due for both tracks[2, 3].
- Early June 2027: End of the 150-day window for award notices[2, 3].
- Fiscal 2031: Statutory funding falls to $75 million a year[6].