AVMA commends Agriculture Committee for maintaining existing programs, introducing new initiatives.
On April 26, the Senate Agriculture Committee passed several veterinary-related provisions in the 2012 Farm Bill. The American Veterinary Medical Association (AVMA) says it is pleased that the committee included these provisions, which it says will improve animal health and welfare, provide valuable agriculture research and improve food safety.
Looking to the future: According to the AVMA, the 2012 farm bill will help protect the agricultural industry, provide a safe food supply and help the economy.
"The AVMA commends the work done by Senate Agriculture Committee Chairwoman Sen. Debbie Stabenow (D-Mich.) and Ranking Member Sen. Pat Roberts (R-Kan.) for their bipartisan efforts to develop a bill that includes key programs essential to ensuring animal health and welfare while at the same time bolstering veterinary services where they are needed most," AVMA President René Carlson, DVM, said in a prepared statement. "The AVMA looks forward to our continued work with Congress to pass a farm bill this year. In these tough economic times this legislation takes steps to reduce the deficit while also providing necessary funding to programs that will increase the nation's ability to provide a safe and abundant food supply, protect and enhance our country's agriculture industry and help the economy."
Specifically, the AVMA notes, the legislation as passed by the committee will:
Not included in the legislation was a formal authorization of the National Animal Health Laboratory Network (NAHLN). The AVMA says this network of laboratories, which recently confirmed the nation's fourth case of bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) in a dairy cow from central California (see page 18), is instrumental to the nation's animal disease surveillance system. The AVMA will also seek to include formal authorization of the Minor Use Animal Drug Program (MUADP), which it says American minor species producers rely on to secure safe and effective products to keep their livestock healthy.
The current five-year farm bill expires at the end of September.