New fees go into effect Oct. 1 for NC poultry growers


RALEIGH – North Carolina poultry growers who want to join the National Poultry Improvement Plan and receive a registration number will have to pay a $50 registration fee plus 10 cents per bird tested beginning Oct. 1.

Growers with an existing registration number will need to pay a $10 annual recertification fee and pay 10 cents per bird tested to maintain their status. The fees were set by the General Assembly this summer to help cover costs incurred by the N.C. Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services to administer the program. Growers who sell live baby poultry or hatching eggs must be compliant with basic NPIP testing requirements, though they are not required to join the NPIP.

“This fee will help our Veterinary Division and our nationally accredited veterinary laboratories allocate the resources needed to maintain a healthy poultry industry in North Carolina,” Agriculture Commissioner Steve Troxler said. “North Carolina’s poultry growers contribute more than $4 billion in cash receipts to the state’s economy and we must be ever vigilant in our disease surveillance efforts.”

The NPIP was established in the 1930s to improve poultry and poultry products on a national level and to eliminate Salmonella pullorum disease, which caused up to 80 percent mortality in young flocks. The program was later extended to include testing and monitoring for several more diseases – including most recently, avian influenza – in commercial poultry, turkeys, waterfowl, exhibition poultry, backyard poultry and game birds.

Last year, the NCDA&CS Veterinary Division registered 596 new flocks, of which 497 were non-commercial. Overall, North Carolina has more than 8,100 registered flocks.