Department Of Agriculture Pennsylvania

Department Of Agriculture Pennsylvania, a child agency of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, operates as a prime recipient for federal grants and a prime contractor on federal service delivery contracts in food safety inspection, animal health laboratory testing, and plant pest surveillance, with work performed across Pennsylvania and at satellite facilities in Ames, Iowa. The agency competes full-and-open (no set-asides) and receives no SBA certifications; it is a U.S. state government entity.

The agency's concrete capability footprint centers on veterinary laboratory diagnostics, food regulatory inspection, and agricultural pest surveillance. On the contract side, the Food and Drug Administration awarded definitive contracts totaling $1.56 million for human food inspections in Pennsylvania (ultimate completion September 2031) and $442 thousand for animal food inspections (August 2031). The USDA's Veterinary Services maintains a $20 million indefinite delivery contract with the agency running through August 2026; under this vehicle, task orders support the National Animal Health Laboratory Network with highly pathogenic avian influenza testing ($300 thousand, April 2027 completion), scrapie testing ($60 thousand), antimicrobial resistance analysis, and foreign animal disease diagnostics. On the grant side, the agency received $3.008 million from the FDA under the Laboratory Flexible Funding Model (CFDA 93.103, through June 2030) to expand food and feed laboratory testing capacity and maintain ISO 17025:2017 accreditation, and $515 thousand from APHIS (CFDA 10.025, April 2027 completion) to administer National Poultry Improvement Plan surveillance and biosecurity audits across Pennsylvania's commercial poultry industry.

Customer concentration is acute and skewed toward USDA. The top five agencies account for 78% of recent award count, with USDA Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service Veterinary Services anchoring the portfolio: 52 awards valued at $42 million (combined potential value). APHIS Marketing and Regulatory Programs Business Services places 25 awards valued at $21.5 million. The Department of Health and Human Services Food and Drug Administration follows with 23 awards valued at $8.9 million. Beyond these three, the portfolio fragments across USDA's Agricultural Marketing Service (40 awards), Food and Nutrition Service (182 awards across food assistance administration), and the Environmental Protection Agency (pesticide regulation enforcement, $2.007 million in incremental EPA Region 3 funding for fiscal 2025–2029). The agency holds no GWACs or GSA Schedules; work flows through direct definitive contracts and indefinite delivery contracts with federal agencies. The $20 million APHIS IDC (contract 12639521D0058) anchors 36 delivery task orders worth $3 million combined potential value.

Activity has remained steady: 44 awards in 2022 and 2024, 52 in 2023, 44 in 2025, and 30 awards in the first nine months of 2026. Fifty-one awards reaching ultimate completion inside the next twenty-four months carry $1.9 million combined potential value and face recompete exposure. The agency operates as prime on 811 awards (100% of its footprint); it holds one sub-award under a One Health cooperative agreement with APHIS for workforce development and epidemiology integration (sub-award date January 9, 2024).

The agency performs federally mandated regulatory missions: food safety inspection on behalf of FDA; animal health diagnostics and disease surveillance on behalf of USDA; and pesticide regulation enforcement on behalf of EPA. It is not a vendor in the commercial sense but a state-level executing partner for federal public health and agricultural regulatory programs. Grant awards fund operational capacity (lab infrastructure, staffing, equipment) and programmatic activities (surveillance for exotic pests, food assistance distribution, animal traceability coordination). The award portfolio reflects ongoing federal reliance on state infrastructure and expertise rather than competitive procurement; many awards recur annually or under multi-year IDCs with modest annual obligation amounts spread across dozens of task orders.