A rural county can recruit a food-animal veterinarian, receive federal support to fill a shortage position, and appear on the shortage list again just a few years later. This pattern, observed by USDA researchers, raises a critical question: What does it take to sustain veterinary access in rural cattle country?
A September 2026 report from USDA’s Economic Research Service (ERS), Food-animal Veterinarians and the Persistence of Rural Shortage Areas, examines recurring shortages alongside changes in veterinary practice economics and the distribution of cattle production.
“Shortages remain widespread and persistent,” says Brandon Genetin, USDA ERS research economist and lead author of the report. “They are dispersed across the United States but are most concentrated in rural areas where many counties repeatedly appear as shortage zones year after year.”
Rural Veterinary Shortages Can Return After Positions Are Filled
Between 2010 and 2026, 81% of rural counties were nominated at least once for a Veterinary Medicine Loan Repayment Program (VMLRP) shortage designation, compared with 62% of urban counties. Fourteen percent of counties were classified as persistent shortage counties, meaning they had been nominated nine or more times.
The VMLRP offers educational loan repayment to veterinarians serving designated shortage areas. Yet in 2024, only 74 of 240 designated areas were filled, or 31%. Fifty-nine percent received no applications, while another 10% received applications that did not result in an accepted award.
The challenge can persist even after a position is filled. Genetin describes counties returning to shortage status one, two or three years after a VMLRP award had been used to fill a position.
Researchers have not yet determined why these counties reappear. A veterinarian may have left, livestock populations or service needs may have changed, or other veterinarians may have departed. The pattern highlights a question for future research: what allows communities to retain veterinary services over time?
Declining Rural Practice Income Adds to the Challenge
The report documents declining economic returns for rural food-animal and mixed-animal practices. Between 2017 and 2024, inflation-adjusted income per full-time-equivalent veterinarian fell 19% among rural food-animal veterinarians and 7% among rural mixed-animal veterinarians. Practice revenue showed a similar rural-urban divide:
- Rural food-animal and mixed-animal practice revenue declined 22% from 2021 to 2025, falling from approximately $2 million to $1.54 million per establishment.
- Urban food-animal and mixed-animal practice revenue increased 19% over the same period.
Researchers identify contraction in the national cattle herd as a possible contributor to declining rural revenue, but have not statistically evaluated the factors behind the changes.
“The demands of food animal practice combined with declining rural incomes and long travel requirements continue to shape where veterinarians ultimately choose to work,” Genetin says.
Long travel distances and seasonal demand can make rural practice challenging to sustain, particularly when veterinarians serve many producers across a wide geographic area. The report documents the economic pressures, although it does not establish how much each factor contributes to recruitment or retention.
Cattle Production Creates Distinct Veterinary Service Demands
Unlike more vertically integrated poultry and swine industries, cattle production relies heavily on private practitioners to provide hands-on care to individual animals across independent operations.
“The structure of the cattle sector creates a greater need for veterinary services from private practices compared to the swine and poultry industries,” Genetin explains.
Poultry production often relies on company-employed veterinarians, flock-level health management and remote monitoring. The swine industry also increasingly uses herd-health and remote-service models. Cattle veterinarians, by contrast, provide reproductive services, diagnostics, castration, dehorning and other hands-on procedures, often during seasonal peaks in demand.
The distribution of cattle operations adds to the challenge. According to the 2022 Census of Agriculture, roughly 700,000 operations with fewer than 500 head collectively managed about 37 million cattle and calves, or 42% of the national total. Just over 29,000 operations with more than 500 head accounted for the remaining 58%.
Although larger operations account for most cattle and calves, smaller operations make up the vast majority of cattle enterprises. Serving them can require veterinarians to cover many locations rather than concentrate services at a few large facilities.
The ERS analysis found that the ratio of cattle operations to AABP veterinarians varied by operation size and geography. Higher ratios for operations with fewer than 500 head were concentrated in Texas, Oklahoma and the Mississippi Delta. For operations with more than 500 head, higher ratios were more common in the Northern Plains, including Montana, Idaho, North Dakota and South Dakota.
Researchers also identified commuting zones with cattle operations but no practicing AABP veterinarians. Because the analysis relies on AABP membership data, it may not capture every veterinarian providing cattle care in those areas.
Veterinary School Admissions Do Not Explain the Whole Gap
Rural residents accounted for approximately 14% of veterinary school applicants in 2025, close to their 13.6% share of the U.S. population. About 45% of rural applicants received at least one acceptance, compared with 49% of urban applicants.
Rural applicants applied to fewer schools on average, but their acceptance probability per application was slightly higher than that of urban applicants: 16.2% compared with 15.2%.
These findings suggest that veterinary school admission alone does not explain persistent rural food-animal shortages. The report instead points to a mismatch between where livestock production creates demand, the available veterinary workforce and the economic returns associated with rural food-animal practice.
In 2025, 17% of new graduates entering private practice intended to work in mixed-animal practice. The share entering food-animal-only practice remained broadly aligned with the share of established AVMA members in that field, showing no clear shift toward exclusive food-animal practice among new graduates.
More Research Is Needed to Understand Persistent Shortages
The report provides an initial overview of shortage patterns, workforce characteristics, veterinary education and practice economics. It does not establish which factors cause counties to become shortage areas or return to shortage status after a position is filled.
“This is an observational approach, getting a sort of initial overview of what’s going on. It begs many questions. And to look at causality is much more challenging and will take time,” says Thomas Worth, deputy administrator of USDA ERS’s Office of Production and Rural Communities.
Further research will be needed to understand why veterinarians leave rural practice, how local economic and livestock-production conditions influence access to care, and which approaches help communities retain veterinary services.
For cattle producers and veterinarians, the findings underscore the complexity of rural service gaps. Federal loan repayment can help fill designated positions, but understanding why shortages recur will be essential to developing more lasting solutions.
