Food Animal Residue Avoidance Database (FARAD)

June 28th, 2024

To All Users and Supporters of the Food Animal Residue Avoidance Databank:

The Directors of FARAD would like to make you aware of issues with the current FY 2024 budget and ask for your support. Although the USDA FY2024 budget was flat-lined, several programs were cut, which included a significant 20% cut to FARAD. Based on initial estimates from the House of Representatives, this cut may continue in the next Farm Bill. FARAD is funded by USDA-NIFA and this continuing 20% budget cut will have a significant impact on a program that responds to an average 84 cases/week from veterinarians. We have had as many as 150 cases some weeks. Many of you know that FARAD is not a federal agency and veterinarians have grown to trust our confidentiality and the scientific rigor we bring to helping veterinarians and their clients make informed decisions that reduce the risk of violative residues while decreasing unnecessary wasting of meat, eggs, milk, or honey.

In addition to these new budget constraints, FARAD confronts mounting challenges related to inflation and difficulties in recruiting and retaining staff due to diminishing support from universities and state funding agencies. Despite these hurdles, FARAD has remained steadfast in providing extra label withdrawal interval advice to veterinarians, for free, throughout the entire year. We are a consortium of 5 different universities that provide call inquiry responses, experimental data to determine the responses, and advanced modeling and computer data mining to expand on those responses. FARAD has done this for 42 years now, with funding from the federal government allocated on a yearly basis. It should be noted that the FARAD leaders at each University are faculty supported by state funds, but it is the highly trained staff and scientists behind them that are supported by FARAD funding. The loss of several of these highly specialized and experienced persons is currently having an impact on service delivery.

Every member of FARAD is dedicated to helping veterinarians and producers treat their livestock to allow for appropriate animal welfare and improved production while continuing to keep the human food supply safe and free of violative drug residues. However, we are in dire need of your support to continue; we are now asking our users to call (preferable) or write to their representatives in the House and Senate and lend their support for continued, full funding for FARAD so we can continue to help you and your clients. Congress should also consider that, after 42 years, the program must receive multi-year support at a level that covers 8 years of unsupported inflation. This issue is urgent, given that the Farm Bill is currently under consideration.

The FARAD program is in danger and may cease to exist as early as 2025. Should this happen, the U.S. will have a law on its books, AMDUCA (1994), which allows veterinarians to practice extra-label drug use but will be unable to follow the letter of the law as there will be no resource to help veterinarians estimate appropriate withholding periods. There will also be no resources to provide guidance on mitigating residues resulting from accidental environmental contamination events. If you value the services provided by FARAD and would like to see the continued existence of the program, we urge you to voice your support.

Sincerely,

The Directors of US FARAD