On Nov. 9, officials from the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service announced that they’ll provide $3 million in grant money to states and other groups conducting research on potential solutions and automated data collection for the National Animal Identification System.

The goals for the NAIS include registering all premises in the United States, identify all livestock housed on those premises, and creating a viable way to track animal movement. These measures are being implemented to help prevent the outbreak and spread of contagious diseases.

So far, USDA officials claim that almost 160,000 premises have been registered. But there’s still much work to be done by the different species’ working groups and individual states to enact the process of animal identification.

According to a USDA release, applicants should propose research or field trial projects to: enhance the effectiveness of collecting animal-identification data; establish identity validation when official identification devices are lost, removed, or malfunction; conduct economic assessments of animal-identification systems and technologies; and evaluate emerging animal-identification technologies with advanced data-collection systems to ascertain the adaptability of the technology for use in NAIS.

Projects applicable to any livestock or animal industry associated with NAIS are eligible for funding. Collaboration with private companies, producer organizations, colleges and universities, or other research organization is strongly encouraged.

Funding application packages are available on the APHIS website.  The deadline for application is Dec. 30. Applications can be submitted electronically to neil.e.hammerschmidt@aphis.usda.gov or through http://grants.gov.

Paper applications should be mailed to the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service, c/o Neil Hammerschmidt, 4700 River Rd., Unit 200, Room 4B-07.5, Riverdale, MD 20737.