Veterinary Services Grant Program

Veterinarians play significant roles in assuring food and fiber animal health, food safety and security, public health, and producer profitability, especially in rural areas of the United States where most livestock production occurs. The VSGP, Assistance Listing 10.336, and its companion Veterinary Medicine Loan Repayment Program (VMLRP), authorized by the National Veterinary Medical Services Act (NVMSA), were established to address concerns that long-term uneven distributions in the veterinary workforce have left some rural communities with insufficient access to food/large animal veterinary services. The objectives of the VSGP are to develop, implement, and sustain food animal veterinary services and relieve veterinarian shortage situations in the United States, which includes Insular Areas (see Appendix III of this NOFO for a definition of Insular Area), and to provide education, extension, and training programs for the food animal veterinary workforce.