The Association is also announcing several additional food safety research priorities, focusing on critical information that is needed to further enhance the safety of ground poultry products.

"Following the ground poultry recalls in late summer, industry food safety experts met with representatives of USPOULTRY, NCC, NTF and AMI, and a number of research priorities were developed," said John Starkey, USPOULTRY president.

"Our deadline extension is intended to give researchers the opportunity to prepare and submit a pre-proposal on these priorities in this funding cycle," Mr Starkey concluded.

A complete priority research list, including sub-topics and detailed instructions, is available at the USPOULTRY website, http://www.poultryegg.org/research. The list of research priorities includes: animal welfare, breeder management (broiler/turkey), broiler management, commercial egg production, diseases, employee safety and health, environmental management, feed mill operations, food safety, further processing, genetics, hatchery management, human nutrition, live haul, market turkey management, nutrition, poultry housing, pullet management, and processing.

Proposals also are invited for new issues that emerge outside the list, but based on justification of the research need. Projects will be selected for funding in late March.

USPOULTRY and its Foundation operate a comprehensive research program incorporating all phases of poultry and egg production and processing. Since the inception of the research programme, USPOULTRY has reinvested more than $23 million dollars into the industry in the form of research grants, with the International Poultry Expo as the primary source for the funding. More than 50 universities and federal and state facilities have received grants over the years.