USPoultry’s research programme was implemented 50 years ago in response to the need of the poultry industry for research directed toward solving the most important problems facing the industry.

During the early years of the development and organisation of the US poultry industry, one of the most limiting factors to success was the widespread incidence of disease in broiler, breeder, layer, and turkey flocks. As farms grew larger and production intensified, new diseases appeared for which control measures did not exist. The poultry industry desperately needed research to be conducted , which could find solutions to some of these disease problems.

Over these past five decades, USPoultry’s research programme has advanced in size, scope, and organization to become an indispensable asset of the US poultry industry and has helped the industry overcome many of the hurdles which initially impaired the industry’s development and success.

“As a researcher and professor, the funds provided by the USPoultry research programme have been invaluable to my work on infectious proventriculitis of broilers. Without the programme’s funding, the research I have conducted would not have been made possible,” said Dr. James Guy, professor at the College of Veterinary Medicine at North Carolina State University. Dr. Guy is the first recipient of the Dr Charles Beard Research Excellence Award, a USPoultry award named for Dr Charles Beard, former director of the Southeast Poultry Research Laboratory and former vice president of research at USPoultry.

“The impact of the USPoultry research programme has been very significant. Many of the great advances in disease control, nutrition, poultry production, genetics, animal welfare, food safety, and environmental management in the poultry industry have come about as a direct result of research funded by USPoultry,” commented Dr. John Glisson, director of research programmes at USPoultry.