USDA Reports on Rural Shortage of Food-Animal Veterinarians

A new report from USDA Economic Research Service, Food-animal Veterinarians and the Persistence of Rural Shortage Areas, notes that although veterinarian services are important to food-animal agriculture, veterinarian shortages in rural areas have persisted across many U.S. rural areas for more than a decade, despite ongoing Federal and State efforts to address service gaps. The report notes that shortages of food-animal veterinarians therefore represent a significant concern for both public health and food security. Among the report’s findings: most veterinary shortages center on medical services for beef cattle, with large differences in the professional experience of bovine veterinarians. In some areas, there are so few veterinarians that a single individual’s retirement can have an outsize impact on the availability of veterinary services for a large area. The report also points out that among identified shortage areas in the USDA Veterinary Medicine Loan Repayment Program (VMLRP) in 2024, 69% were unfilled, and more than half of those received no applications whatsoever.