The U.S. Department of Agriculture Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service awarded a cooperative agreement to the Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture on April 1, 2026, obligating $515,282 under the Plant and Animal Disease, Pest Control, and Animal Care program (CFDA 10.025).
The Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture serves as the Official State Agency for the commercial portion of the National Poultry Improvement Plan. Under this agreement, the Department delivers surveillance, diagnostic support, compliance monitoring, emergency preparedness, and training activities protecting Pennsylvania's commercial poultry industry and the public from Salmonella species and highly pathogenic avian influenza. Specific deliverables center on four objectives: general avian health support, laboratory diagnostics, training, and preparedness and response.
The Department will conduct active surveillance and testing on NPIP hatcheries, breeder flocks, raised-for-release game flocks, and commercial flocks per Code of Federal Regulations and program standards, perform on-site and virtual facility inspections, maintain poultry movement records for intrastate and interstate bird movements, track and distribute laboratory reports required for premovement and NPIP maintenance testing, conduct biosecurity audits to ensure regulatory compliance, maintain and update the Initial State Response and Containment Plan as the template for disease outbreak response, preserve producer, grower, and company contact information for emergency response coordination, and provide education and training to industry partners.
Place of performance is Pennsylvania. The period of performance runs from April 1, 2026, through March 31, 2027.