This bill removes the 'pilot' label from the existing feral swine pilot program in the Agriculture Improvement Act of 2018 and recasts it as an ongoing feral swine eradication and control program administered by USDA agencies. It adds a statutory definition for eligible areas, requires continued monitoring after local eradication, and directs joint reporting to Congress on program activities and outcomes.
For producers, state and local governments, and federal wildlife and agricultural managers, the bill makes the federal response to invasive feral swine more permanent and accountable. The statutory changes create new operational duties for APHIS and NRCS and a clearer framework for measuring success — which will shape funding decisions and on‑the‑ground eradication strategies going forward.
At a Glance
What It Does
Turns the prior pilot into a statutory USDA program that authorizes coordinated action by APHIS and NRCS, sets an eligibility test for areas that qualify for program support, requires that areas declared free of feral swine receive one year of follow‑up monitoring, and mandates joint reports to Congress describing activities and outcomes.
Who It Affects
USDA agencies (Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service and Natural Resources Conservation Service), state agricultural and wildlife agencies, agricultural producers in affected counties, conservation groups involved in habitat protection, and contractors who perform control and monitoring work.
Why It Matters
Making the effort permanent shifts resources and accountability from temporary pilot projects to an enduring federal program with defined monitoring and reporting, which changes how states and producers plan eradication campaigns and how USDA prioritizes and measures success.
More articles like this one.
A weekly email with all the latest developments on this topic.
What This Bill Actually Does
The bill amends the Agriculture Improvement Act of 2018 by striking references to a 'pilot' and establishing a standing feral swine eradication and control program. It adds a simple statutory definition of 'eligible area' — any part of a State where the Secretary of Agriculture determines feral swine pose a threat to agriculture, native ecosystems, or human or animal health — which gives USDA a unilateral trigger for offering program assistance.
Operationally, the bill directs APHIS and NRCS to continue active monitoring in any eligible area for one year after USDA determines feral swine have been eradicated there. That monitoring duty is a discrete, time‑limited compliance obligation for the agencies and creates an explicit post‑eradication surveillance phase intended to detect recurrence quickly.The bill also amends funding provisions: it inserts a new multi‑year appropriation authorizing $75,000,000 for the period covering fiscal years 2025 through 2030.
In addition, it adjusts two numerical allocations in the statute — replacing two prior '50' figures with '40' and '60' respectively — which rebalances how the statute distributes program shares or thresholds (practitioners will need to read the affected paragraph to map those numbers to specific cost‑share or allocation lines).Finally, the bill requires two joint reports from APHIS and NRCS — one at approximately two years and a second at about four and a half years after enactment. Each report must describe program activities, the number of counties where feral swine are no longer present, estimated reductions in agricultural and natural‑resource damage and improvements to human and livestock health and safety, how funds were used (including county‑level assistance counts), the roles of the agencies and producers, and a joint determination on program success with recommendations for improvements.
The bill also updates the statute table of contents to reflect the program name change.
The Five Things You Need to Know
The bill strikes the word 'pilot' from the existing authority and establishes a permanent 'feral swine eradication and control program' in statute.
It requires APHIS and NRCS to continue monitoring any area for 1 year after USDA declares feral swine eradicated there.
The statute adds a definition of 'eligible area' based on the Secretary's determination that feral swine threaten agriculture, native ecosystems, or human/animal health.
Congressional reporting: APHIS and NRCS must jointly submit a detailed report ~2 years and again ~4.5 years after enactment with county‑level outcomes, funding use, and a joint success determination and recommendations.
The bill authorizes $75,000,000 for the program for fiscal years 2025–2030 and changes two statutory numeric allocations from '50'/'50' to '40'/'60' in the program's funding paragraph.
Section-by-Section Breakdown
Every bill we cover gets an analysis of its key sections.
Convert 'pilot' to standing program
The bill removes the 'pilot' label throughout section 2408 and substitutes 'program' or 'eligible area' where appropriate. That change is not cosmetic: it signals that the activities authorized under the section are meant to be ongoing, not limited‑term experiments, and it requires USDA to operate them under a permanent statutory framework. Practically, program conversion affects planning horizons for interagency coordination, eligibility outreach, contracting, and multi‑year funding commitments.
Eligibility test and post‑eradication surveillance
The bill inserts a statutory definition of 'eligible area' that ties program eligibility to a Secretary determination that feral swine threaten agriculture, native ecosystems, or human/animal health. It also adds an obligation for APHIS and NRCS to continue monitoring for one year after USDA determines feral swine have been eradicated from an eligible area, creating a defined surveillance window to catch reinvasion or residual populations and inform follow‑up response plans.
Multi‑year appropriation and numeric reallocations
The bill amends the funding paragraph to authorize $75,000,000 for fiscal years 2025 through 2030. It also changes two numeric values in a subsequent subparagraph — replacing two occurrences of '50' with '40' and '60' — which rebalance the statutory allocation or percentage provisions in that paragraph. The statute does not add a new funding mechanism beyond the appropriation language, so actual outlays will still depend on annual appropriations and USDA implementation.
Two joint reports with outcome metrics and recommendations
The bill requires APHIS and NRCS to jointly deliver publicly available reports roughly 2 years and 4.5 years after enactment. Each report must list program activities, the number of counties cleared of feral swine, estimated reductions in agricultural and natural resource damage and benefits to human and livestock health, the use of funds (including county counts), the roles of USDA agencies and producers, and a joint determination on program success plus recommended improvements. Those reporting obligations create a measurable record for Congress and stakeholders to evaluate program performance.
Update table of contents
The bill updates the Agriculture Improvement Act table of contents to reflect the new program name. It is a clerical change but ensures that statutory cross‑references and printed versions of the law align with the revised program designation.
This bill is one of many.
Codify tracks hundreds of bills on Agriculture across all five countries.
Explore Agriculture in Codify Search →Who Benefits and Who Bears the Cost
Every bill creates winners and losers. Here's who stands to gain and who bears the cost.
Who Benefits
- State agricultural and wildlife agencies — Gain access to a standing federal program and clearer eligibility criteria and reporting that can support coordinated eradication campaigns and federal assistance.
- Producers in affected counties — Stand to receive financial and technical assistance from USDA programs under a statutory framework designed for sustained operations rather than time‑limited pilots.
- Conservation and ecosystem managers — Benefit from explicit federal attention and post‑eradication monitoring that reduces the risk of reinvasion and helps protect native habitats.
- Rural communities and public‑health officials — Gain from reduced livestock and human health risks when feral swine populations are removed and surveillance is in place to detect recurrence.
- Contractors and service providers (control, surveillance, data analysis) — May see steadier demand for services because the program is structured as ongoing rather than episodic.
Who Bears the Cost
- USDA agencies (APHIS and NRCS) — Face new operational duties, notably the one‑year post‑eradication monitoring and expanded reporting responsibilities, which will require staff time, program coordination, and budget execution.
- Federal budget/appropriations — The authorized $75 million commitment creates fiscal exposure that competes with other priorities and depends on Congress to appropriate funds annually.
- Counties and local landowners — May have to coordinate with federal operations and accept control activities on private or mixed‑ownership lands, and could bear logistical or matching obligations depending on how USDA implements assistance.
- Program contractors and grantees — Must comply with the program's reporting and outcome measurement requirements, which may increase administrative burden compared with prior pilot arrangements.
- States with limited infestations — Could face expectations to prioritize eradication and surveillance costs to qualify for or complement federal support, potentially reallocating state resources.
Key Issues
The Core Tension
The central dilemma is between federal flexibility and local certainty: the bill centralizes USDA authority to define eligible areas and to run an ongoing eradication program (which allows a coordinated, nationally consistent response) while imposing temporal monitoring and funding frameworks that may not match ecological realities on the ground or guarantee stable long‑term funding, forcing trade‑offs between program responsiveness and the sustained resources and technical specificity needed to secure permanent eradication.
The bill packs several implementation choices into modest textual edits, and those choices create tensions. First, defining 'eligible area' by the Secretary's determination centralizes discretion at USDA.
That improves flexibility to respond to evolving outbreaks, but it also concentrates the decision about where federal assistance flows and could produce variation in access across states depending on USDA priorities and evidentiary thresholds. Second, the one‑year post‑eradication monitoring requirement commits APHIS and NRCS to a surveillance window that is operationally useful but may be too short in some ecosystems where low‑density populations can persist undetected for longer periods; the statute does not prescribe monitoring intensity or methodologies, leaving those technical decisions to agency guidance and budgets.
Third, the bill authorizes a multi‑year appropriation and tweaks two numeric allocation figures, but it does not change the underlying dependency on annual appropriations or specify whether the $75 million is mandatory or subject to offsets. The numeric changes (50→40 and 50→60) reallocate statutory shares but lack contextual text in the amendment that makes it immediately obvious which program line items are affected; agencies and practitioners will need to map the edits to the existing statute to see how cost‑shares, caps, or thresholds shift.
Finally, the joint reporting requirement creates public accountability but also a new administrative burden; the success determination is a joint judgment by APHIS and NRCS that may be scrutinized by Congress and stakeholders, and there is no independent evaluation clause or defined success metrics beyond the items listed in the report requirement.
Try it yourself.
Ask a question in plain English, or pick a topic below. Results in seconds.