The 2026 colorado department of agriculture highly pathogenic avian influenza emergency cooperative agreement funding will contribute to payment for unexpected costs arising from the disease…

The Department of Agriculture Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service awarded a $303,127 Cooperative Agreement to the Colorado Department of Agriculture on January 29, 2026, under the Plant and Animal Disease, Pest Control, and Animal Care program (CFDA 10.025) to fund emergency response costs arising from Colorado's highly pathogenic avian influenza outbreak that began in January 2024.

The award reimburses unexpected expenses including state responder overtime, personnel travel and lodging, personal protection equipment, disposable disease response supplies, and contractor costs. Colorado responders execute disease control activities encompassing issuance and notification of quarantines, disease surveillance in control areas and surveillance zones, biosecurity monitoring on infected premises, monitoring of poultry euthanasia and carcass disposal, cleaning and disinfection oversight, permits for movement of feed and supplies, stakeholder outreach, response to sick bird calls, environmental sampling, real-time disease response reporting, and incident document management and data entry.

The funded activities are designed to facilitate timely return to normal poultry production and trade within the state and with trading partners, encourage robust biosecurity to minimize further transmission, support infected premise recovery at the earliest opportunity, maintain stakeholder and consumer education, and sustain surveillance and investigation capacity for early detection should the outbreak re-emerge or be reintroduced.

The award period runs through January 28, 2027, with performance in Colorado.

Activities

Activities performed by colorado responders include issuance and notification of state's quarantines; disease surveillance in control areas and surveillance zones; monitoring of biosecurity on infected premises; monitoring of euthanasia of infected poultry and disposal of carcasses; monitoring of cleaning and disinfection of infected premises; approval of permits for movement of feed, supplies and products into or out of control areas; stakeholder outreach; response to sick bird calls; environmental sampling; real time reporting of disease response status; data entry and incident document management. Deliverables and expected outcomes: cooperator activities will facilitate a timely return to normal poultry production/ trade within the state and with other state trading partners to the extent possible under the circumstances; encourages and monitors robust biosecurity of production facilities to minimize further transmission of highly pathogenic avian influenza; facilitates return to production by infected premises at the earliest possible opportunity; maintains outreach and education to stakeholders and consumers; and maintains highly pathogenic avian influenza surveillance and investigation of suspicious sick bird calls to allow earliest detection should highly pathogenic avian influenza RE-emerge or be RE-introduced.

Intended beneficiaries

Rapid and effective response to highly pathogenic avian influenza outbreak in colorado minimizes further transmission of disease to other premises and minimizes the impact, to the extent possible, to agriculture trade within colorado and with other states. This benefits the colorado poultry industry, as well as consumers, who continue to have access to poultry and poultry products produced within the state.