USDA Issues $1.75 Billion for Relief and Plant-Based for Students

**Merck Animal Health announced it has awarded $90,000 in scholarships to 18 bovine veterinary students in partnership with the American Association of Bovine Practitioners.

Scholarship recipients were selected based on their academic achievements, career goals, work experience, and interest in veterinary medicine.

The scholarships were recently given out during the 2023 AABP Annual Conference in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, with each winner getting $5,000.

**The USDA began issuing more than $1.75 billion in emergency relief payments to eligible farmers and livestock producers.

These much-needed payments are helping farmers and ranchers recover following natural disasters in 2020, 21, and 22.

Ag Secretary Tom Vilsack says, these payments reflect the incredible and cumulative financial hits brought on by devastating natural disasters which ag producers have endured while fulfilling their commitment to produce our food, fiber, and fuel.

**Newly introduced legislation would give kids a nutritionally equivalent, plant-based milk option to cow’s milk in the National School Lunch Program.

Welcomed by animal rights groups, the Addressing Digestive Distress in Stomachs of Our Youth Act requires public schools to offer a nutritionally equivalent plant-based options that the USDA would reimburse schools for.

The National Milk Producers Federation says this latest ploy among the vegan, animal rights and plant-based lobbies is to suddenly paint themselves as social justice crusaders.