The purpose of the 2025-2026 tennessee department of agriculture (TDA) - animal disease traceability (ADT) cooperative agreement is to facilitate ongoing efforts by the TDA to capture and manage…

The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) awarded a $145,185 Cooperative Agreement to the Tennessee Department of Agriculture (TDA) - Division of Animal Industries for the Plant and Animal Disease, Pest Control, and Animal Care (CFDA 10.025) program. The purpose of this Apr 1, 2025 to Mar 31, 2026 award is to facilitate TDA's ongoing efforts to capture and manage animal identification data, maintain and improve livestock traceability, share Tennessee's animal ID data with other states, promote traceability concepts with the Tennessee animal agriculture industry, and identify and address compliance issues. Key activities include exercising Tennessee's traceability capabilities, outreach to producers and stakeholders, distributing official animal ID tags, and maintaining critical IT systems. The TDA will also conduct oversight and enforcement of Tennessee's animal disease traceability requirements.

Activities

Significant activities include ongoing exercising of tennessee's traceability capability; critical assessment of trace exercises to identify possible shortfalls; outreach to producers, veterinarians, and markets; and identification of compliance issues that could adversely affect traceability of animals. The recipient will receive and distribute official identification tags to field personnel, veterinarians, livestock markets and producers for further distribution or application to livestock, administer these processes, and maintain data related to any or all distributions of these devices. The recipient will ensure that critical IT applications that serve in the previously mentioned capacities are maintained, and that sharing of this data with other states is facilitated using aher or other electronic means such as exportable spreadsheets. Capture of animal identification data by field personnel, livestock markets, veterinarians and other stakeholders will be promoted by extensive outreach, and by targeted trainings of stakeholders on electronic data capture and use of digital applications for creating electronic certificates of inspection (ecvi's), test charts and other documents. The recipient's enforcement branch will conduct oversight of livestock conveyances to monitor compliance with tennessee's ADT requirements and report compliance issues to the avic. Other recipient support staff will review import CVI's and initiate appropriate action when non-compliance is identified. Finally, the award will support travel and training costs for in-state educational activities of tennessee field staff. Deliverables and expected outcomes: anticipated deliverables/ outcomes include continued improvement of recipient to successfully conduct animal traces, increased utilization of digital technology by state personnel and other animal industry stakeholders to capture animal identification data, continued digital management of this data and increased use of digital technology to generate ecvi's or other official forms for surveillance and movement testing. Extensive outreach and more effective utilization of the state's animal health enforcement branch will hopefully result in more visibility for this program and increased compliance with ADT regulations and concepts by tennessee's animal industry. Intended beneficiary(IES): the beneficiary of this award is primarily the tennessee animal agriculture industry. Increased utilization of animal traceability allows for more effective and efficient disease response in outbreaks or when tracing exposed or infected animals. U.S. Consumers ultimately benefit from traceability by its potential for minimizing long-term impact of significant disease outbreaks or further spread of animal disease in food animal production.

Subrecipient activities

There are no subrecipients identified at this time.