Veterinary Services Grant Program | USDA NIFA VSGP 008941

Opportunity Information: Apply for USDA NIFA VSGP 008941

The Veterinary Services Grant Program (VSGP) is a competitive grant opportunity from the USDA National Institute of Food and Agriculture (NIFA) aimed at reducing shortages of food animal veterinarians in rural parts of the United States, including U.S. insular areas. The program focuses on building practical, on-the-ground capacity by strengthening the training pipeline for veterinarians and veterinary support staff and by helping clinics obtain the tools and resources they need to serve livestock and mixed-animal communities more effectively. At its core, VSGP is meant to expand and sustain veterinary services where they are hardest to find, improving animal health, supporting producers, and reinforcing food safety and public health systems.

VSGP funding supports two broad types of efforts: education, extension, and training initiatives on one hand, and rural practice enhancement on the other. On the education and workforce side, grants can be used to establish or expand accredited veterinary education programs and structured training opportunities such as residencies, fellowships, internships, and externships, particularly when these efforts are coordinated with accredited colleges of veterinary medicine. The program also funds continuing education and extension activities for veterinarians, veterinary technicians, and other relevant health professionals. This includes telemedicine and other distance-based learning approaches that can reach practitioners spread across large geographic areas. In addition, VSGP can cover travel and living costs for veterinary students and trainees (including interns, externs, residents, fellows) as well as veterinary technicians, which helps remove financial barriers that often limit participation in rural or food-animal focused training experiences. Another allowable use is career exposure programming for high school juniors and seniors (grades 11 and 12) to introduce them to education pathways and careers in food animal medicine, supporting longer-term workforce development.

Eligibility depends on the specific project type and the applicant category, but in all cases applicants must propose activities that either substantially relieve veterinarian shortage situations or support/facilitate private veterinary practices engaged in public health activities. For education, extension, and training (often referred to as EET), eligible applicants include AVMA-recognized food animal veterinary organizations (state, national, allied, regional, or professional), AVMA-accredited colleges or schools of veterinary medicine, university research foundations or veterinary medical foundations, certain accredited departments of veterinary science or comparative medicine, state agricultural experiment stations or 1890 institution research farms, and state, local, or tribal government agencies. For rural practice enhancement (often referred to as RPE), eligible applicants include for-profit or nonprofit veterinary clinics or hospitals located in the U.S. that provide mixed or large animal services in a rural area as defined by federal statute. Clinics or hospitals employing a current Veterinary Medicine Loan Repayment Program (VMLRP) awardee can also apply, but they must tie the proposal to the specific shortage area where that awardee is obligated to serve. A key compliance detail for RPE applications is that a single shortage area designation must be clearly identified in the proposal title and narrative and entered in the appropriate application form field, using the published shortage area listings (for example, the FY 2021 shortage situation areas referenced in the notice).

From an administrative standpoint, this is a discretionary grant program under CFDA 10.336. The funding opportunity number is USDA NIFA VSGP 008941. The opportunity was created on February 22, 2022, and the listed application closing date was April 22, 2022. The maximum award amount shown is $250,000. Overall, the program is structured to move beyond short-term fixes by simultaneously strengthening training pathways, improving access to continuing education (including remote methods), reducing financial hurdles for rural training placements, and directly supporting rural food-animal practices so they can deliver essential veterinary services in officially recognized shortage areas.

• The National Institute of Food and Agriculture in the agriculture sector is offering a public funding opportunity titled "Veterinary Services Grant Program" and is now available to receive applicants.
• Interested and eligible applicants and submit their applications by referencing the CFDA number(s): 10.336.
• This funding opportunity was created on 2022-02-22.
• Applicants must submit their applications by 2022-04-22. (Agency may still review applications by suitable applicants for the remaining/unused allocated funding in 2026.)
• Each selected applicant is eligible to receive up to $250,000.00 in funding.
• Eligible applicants include: Others.

Apply for USDA NIFA VSGP 008941

[Watch] Creating a grant proposal using the step-by-step wizard inside the applicant portal: