Regional Support for Veterinary Services for Food Animals

On this page

• Background
• Eligible activities
  • Program eligibility
  • Applicant eligibility
• Applications
• Review and adjudication
• Reimbursement
• Program timeline
• Program contact

Background

The Regional Support for Veterinary Services for Food Animals Program (RS-VET) supports veterinary practices to increase services for food-producing animals in highly underserviced regions of British Columbia. View the full program guide (PDF, 815 KB).

This program is funded in part by the governments of Canada and British Columbia under the Sustainable Canadian Agricultural Partnership, a federal-provincial-territorial initiative.

Eligible activities

Veterinary practices may apply for funding for one or more of the following activities, to a maximum total funding amount of $25,000 per practice over the duration of the program (August 1, 2026 to December 31, 2027)

• Licensing and accreditation to deliver food animal services
• Enhanced service delivery
• Recruitment and Retention

Program eligibility

Eligible geographic regions

Eligible Priority 1 geographic regions include Stikine, Kitimat Stikine, Peace River, Northern Rockies, North Coast, Central Coast, Bulkley Nechako and Fraser Fort George (see program guide (PDF, 815 KB) for map).

Applicant eligibility 

For licensing and accreditation to deliver food animal services:

• Veterinary practices accredited by the College of Veterinarians of BC (CVBC), but not currently accredited for food animal services
• Veterinarians licensed by the CVBC, or immediately eligible for licensing by the CVBC

For all other activities

• Veterinary practices accredited by the CVBC to provide food animal services
• Actively offering food animal services to clients in Priority 1 regions during the program period. For this program, food animals are defined as animals raised to produce food or fiber, and include cattle, swine, sheep, goats, poultry, and bison. Services to producers at any production scale (large-scale, small lot) are eligible

Applications 

Applications will collect information that includes:

• Practice and designated veterinarian name, address, phone numbers and email addresses
• Number of:
  • Full time (equivalent) veterinarians
  • Full time (equivalent) registered veterinary technologists (RVTs)
  • Herd or flock level veterinary-client-patient relationships (VCPRs)
  • Types of animals serviced by the practice and approximate proportion of cases seen for each animal type.
• Three or more support letters from local government(s) and/or producer group(s), and/or individual producers, attesting to the need for increased access to veterinary services for food animals in the intended service delivery area. Please email these letters to Chief.Veterinarian@gov.bc.ca. They are required before your application can be approved.
• Standard demographic information (Indigeneity, gender, age) of the practice owners.

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Review and adjudication 

Provincial staff will review all applications for eligibility and completeness.

If the amount of program funding requested across all eligible and complete applications exceeds funding available, allocation will be on a first come first served basis.

Reimbursement 

On acceptance to the program, applicants must submit the Direct Deposit Application Form for General and Service Suppliers along with a void cheque.

For the activity "Licensing and accreditation to deliver food animal services", reimbursement will be available once the practice is actively delivering food animal services in a Priority 1 region. For other activities, reimbursement will be available on a quarterly basis for activities completed in the quarter.

Program timeline 

Applications will be accepted through UNITY starting on June 24, 2026 on a first come first served basis. Applications will close on September 15, 2026. Additional application windows may be opened subsequently if funding is available. These funding windows may include additional geographic regions.

Accepted applicants may start program activities on or after August 1, 2026. The final day for program activities and expenditures is December 31, 2027.

Program contact 

If you are a veterinary clinic and have questions about the application process or eligibility criteria, please contact program staff at chief.veterinarian@gov.bc.ca or call AGRIServiceBC at 1-888-221-7141.