USDA proposes update to vital poultry health programme amid ongoing reforms

The US Department of Agriculture’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service has opened a 61-day public comment period for proposed changes to the historic National Poultry Improvement Plan, aiming to enhance disease control and biosecurity measures in the poultry sector.

The US Department of Agriculture’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service has opened a 61-day public comment period on a proposed update to the National Poultry Improvement Plan, with submissions due by 5 October, according to a notice published in the Federal Register on 5 August.

The plan is a voluntary federal-state testing and certification programme first established in 1935. It covers breeding flocks, hatcheries, baby chicks, poults, hatching eggs and dealers, and is intended to improve poultry health and product quality while helping eliminate diseases such as pullorum and monitor threats including avian influenza.

USDA has not yet released the full text of the proposed changes in the summary available, but the notice comes less than a year after APHIS finalised earlier amendments to the same programme in September 2025. Those revisions were designed to strengthen biosecurity, clarify participation and testing rules, and bring the framework into line with current production and disease-control practices. They took effect on 30 October 2025.

The latest proposal is part of a broader run of USDA poultry rulemaking this year. In May, the department delayed the effective date of a separate final rule on poultry grower payment systems until the end of 2027, citing cost, policy and legal concerns raised by stakeholders.

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