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March 2025

Federal funding freeze for Board programs thaws and testing coverage anticipated to return

The Minnesota Board of Animal Health (Board) has been navigating significant budget constraints through the start of 2025 while federal funds have been frozen. We rely on cooperative agreement funding from the USDA for a lot of our work. Thankfully, through the hard work and persistence of our elected officials and local USDA staff, federal funding for Minnesota has been reinstated.

While funds were rescinded the Board took immediate internal measures to reduce costs from its already lean operations with all non-essential spending frozen. In addition to those internal efforts, the Board also paused some external programs, including routine NPIP testing services and paying for farmed cervid CWD testing. None of these measures impacted HPAI surveillance and response activities.

The Board is glad to announce it plans to reinstate coverage of at least some testing costs for routine NPIP samples for producers. Additionally, the Board is also working to resume coverage for CWD testing for farmed cervidae. An official resumption of testing coverage is anticipated in mid-April.

We recognize this is a challenging time for everyone and appreciate producers' understanding and collaboration as we took the temporary pause in covering some of our disease testing costs and work to resume coverage.

Keep reading...

More details on our disease dashboards Did you know you can track the latest confirmed cases of avian influenza in poultry and H5N1 in livestock on our website? If not, head on over to our homepage at www.mn.gov/bah and click on one of the tiles showing either the chickens (HPAI) or cows (H5N1 in livestock) to browse the disease response pages and find the dashboards tracking all the confirmations. If you do already follow our dashboards, you may be interested in some of the new details we're publishing and refreshed visuals representing the ongoing response. The dashboards are refreshed weekdays whenever new cases are confirmed and we respond to the detection.

You can't spell spring without PIN

Premises Identification Numbers are used for a lot of things when you have livestock (and sometimes when you don't) on your farm. For example, spring is almost here and exhibitions and fairs are coming up quickly. If you plan to exhibit livestock at an event or if you need them officially ID'd for another reason, you'll need your PIN to place a tag order. Waiting until the last minute can put a crunch on your plans, so double check you have a PIN on your farm today and register now if you don't.

Visit our website if you need to lookup a forgotten PIN or register your premises for a new PIN. You can also register for a national PIN on our website.

Key to healthy operation is biosecurity Biosecurity can protect livestock, workers, and the environment they share. This is especially true in situations with avian influenza or other flu viruses on the landscape, which may have the ability to affect different species. Following a strong biosecurity plan and sticking to good practices is the key to keeping everyone healthy. Find biosecurity tips, definitions, and guides in multiple languages for all kinds of livestock operations on our Board of Animal Health Biosecurity webpage. (Image courtesy Iowa Department of Health and Human Services) Don't forget diseases can travel from animals to people and from people to animals, which means all workers should keep up to date on vaccines and avoid direct contact with animals when ill. Additionally, advise employees to maintain good hand hygiene when entering or leaving livestock areas and before and after changing into or out of PPE. Sticking to some of these simple practices reduces the risk of disease transmission.

April Board meeting scheduled

The second quarterly Board meeting of 2025 is scheduled for Tuesday, April 1, 2025 at the Minnesota Farmers Union offices in St. Paul. Please visit our website for the current agenda and remote access information.

Healthy animals for healthy people and communities.

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