The 2025-26 kentucky animal health umbrella cooperative agreement funding will contribute to the state's ability to conduct disease surveillance, conduct disease management/ eradication activities,…

The Kentucky Department of Agriculture received a $219,557 Cooperative Agreement from the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) under the Plant and Animal Disease, Pest Control, and Animal Care program (CFDA 10.025) for the period of April 1, 2025, through March 31, 2026. This award funds Kentucky's animal health umbrella initiative, which delivers comprehensive disease surveillance, management, and eradication activities across the state's non-commercial avian, beef and dairy cattle, small ruminant, captive cervid, and swine industries. The department will conduct active and passive surveillance for priority diseases, perform testing of surveillance samples, manage surveillance data entry and reporting, and execute biosecurity audits at production units and animal concentration points.

In addition to surveillance activities, the funding supports domestic and foreign animal disease investigations and mitigation activities, outreach and education to producers, veterinarians, and industry stakeholders regarding state and federal animal disease programs, and development and maintenance of animal disease incident preparedness and response plans. The award also includes One Health and zoonotic disease activities. Through successful completion of these activities, the Kentucky Department of Agriculture will meet required surveillance goals, contribute to disease investigations, minimize disease introduction risks through proven biosecurity practices, detect disease occurrences early to enable efficient mitigation, and increase stakeholder awareness and engagement with animal disease programs and biosecurity concepts.

Activities

Specific activities that will be performed by recipient or subrecipients include active and passive surveillance for priority diseases in various animal species; testing of surveillance samples; surveillance data entry, management and reporting; biosecurity audits of production units and animal concentration points; domestic and foreign animal disease investigations and mitigation activities; outreach to and education for animal industry stakeholders about state/ federal animal disease programs; development and maintenance of animal disease incident preparedness and response plans. Deliverables and expected outcomes: successful completion of the described activities will allow KDA to meet required program survei llance goals, enter and manage data and appropriately report this data; contribute to disease and disease trace investigations; minimize risk for introduction of disease into animal production units or concentration points by practicing and enforcing proven biosecurity concepts; detect animal disease occurrences/ introductions early which will facilitate more effective and efficient mitigation; increase producer and other animal industry stakeholder's awareness, acceptance and engagement with animal disease programs, surveillance activities and use of proven biosecurity concepts; continue development of emergency preparedness and animal disease response plans; and, provide education and outreach to animal industry stakeholders on preparedness/ response planning which will continue to increase understanding and engagement by stakeholders in these topics.

Intended beneficiaries

The surveillance activities provide for early detection of specified animal diseases in KY which allows for a more effective and efficient response to detections. Outreach to, and education for producers, veterinarians and other industry stakeholders provides a better understanding of the needs for surveillance and disease management and allows them to engage more effectively in these activities. Outreach and education activities extend also to animal health, emergency preparedness and response planning which may allow stakeholders to contribute more and have more engagement with development and implementation of these plans. The award will also contribute to the nahln lab's ability to maintain testing infrastructure and surge capacity in the event of animal disease outbreaks. Other beneficiaries include consumers of animal agriculture products within kentucky, as well as outside of kentucky who will benefit from these efforts that contribute to decreased production losses, more efficient production and lower costs to consumers. Subrecipient activities, if known or specified at time of award: KDA will use some award funding to reimburse the two, state, nahln laboratories for avian disease testing (H5/H7 influenza, and other avian production disease), and sampling/ submission of cattle tissue samples to designated labs for BSE testing, as well as temporary storage and appropriate disposal of cattle carcasses. These activities contribute to critical animal disease surveillance in kentucky.