The Regional Recruitment and Retention of Veterinary Service Delivery for Food Animals (VET) Program supports organizations and veterinary practices to increase the availability of veterinary services for food-producing animals in underserviced communities and regions.
A sub-program of the Recruitment, Retention and Innovative Skills Program, VET supports the recruitment and retention of new veterinarians and registered veterinary technologists (RVT) to practices that deliver veterinary services for food-producing animals. For this program, food-producing animals are defined as animals raised to produce food or fiber and include cattle, swine, sheep, goats, poultry, bison, and fish. The VET program also supports community capacity building and strategic planning to support the delivery of veterinary services to food-producing animals.
The VET program will open for applications on February 18th, 2025, to March 19th, 2025. We are also pleased to share the maximum funding amount for Stream 2 has increased from $25,000 to $40,000!
Applied to the VET program in December? You should have received an email invitation to update your application and receive the new maximum funding amount. Please reach out to vet@iafbc.ca if you have any questions.
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Program Objectives
The objectives of this program are to:
- pilot new and innovative recruitment and retention practices for delivery of veterinary services, particularly services for food-producing animals in rural BC.
- develop partnerships to improve the attraction and retention of veterinarians and registered veterinary technologists to veterinary practices that provide veterinary services for food-producing animals, particularly outside of the lower mainland.
Program Goals
- Increase recruitment and retention of new veterinarians and RVTs to BC Veterinary practices that provide services for food-producing animals, especially in regions of BC outside of the lower mainland.
- Expand the provision of telemedicine and/or other innovative mechanisms identified by community veterinary practices and partners to facilitate delivery of veterinary services in rural communities and for food-producing animals.
- Build partnerships, capacity, and improved mutual understanding between stakeholders on the challenges and solutions for delivery of veterinary services for food-producing animals at the community level, including producer organizations, other community organizations, First Nations, and veterinary practices. Partnerships may include other agencies, such as local governments.
- Support community-level strategic planning to address the challenge of delivery of veterinary services in rural communities and for food-producing animals.

Approach

Funding Stream Details



Applying to the Program
Notifications and Obligations
Prioritization Criteria
Applications to Stream 1: Regional Strategic Planning and Partnerships and Stream 2: Recruitment and Service Expansion will be prioritized based on the following criteria:

Apply
Resources
Funding provided by:

The Regional Recruitment and Retention of Veterinary Service Delivery for Food Animals Program is funded under the Agriculture and Food Workforce Development Initiative (AWDI). AWDI is funded by the Ministry of Social Development and Poverty Reduction through the Canada-British Columbia Labour Market Agreement. The initiative is a $15M fund designed to support BC’s agriculture industry to provide a stable and increasing food supply through targeted efforts to recruit and retain a sufficient workforce to meet the labour needs of the industry. AWDI is delivered by the Investment Agriculture Foundation of BC (IAF).
Please note: the Government of BC may, from time to time, give instructions to IAF in relation to the delivery and administration of this program. IAF must and will comply with those instructions.