(TRENTON) – New Jersey Secretary of Agriculture Douglas Fisher today announced the appointment of Dr. Amar Patil as Director of the New Jersey Department of Agriculture’s Division of Animal Health. The appointment was approved by the New Jersey State Board of Agriculture at its monthly meeting last week.

Dr. Patil has been the Director of the NJDA’s Animal Health Diagnostic Laboratory (AHDL) since July 2021, and before that was the lab’s Assistant Director from November 2011 to July 2021. He started with the NJDA as a Research Scientist in the Division of Animal Health in October 2007.

“Dr. Patil has been a key part in the success of both the AHDL and the overall operations of the Division of Animal Health, and he is certain to continue and expand his fine work in this new Division Director position,” Secretary Fisher said. “He has all the qualities to be an effective director and will ensure the continuity of the division and laboratory working cohesively.”

During Dr. Patil’s work with the laboratory, the AHDL received ISO 17025:2005 accreditation from the American Association for Laboratory Accreditation, making it one of approximately two dozen such labs in the United States and the only one in New Jersey, that offers veterinary diagnostic testing.

With that accreditation, the AHDL is able to conduct more types of tests and significantly reduce the time it takes for results to become official, especially important when responding to disease outbreaks and other emergency situations, such as the recent detections of Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza (HPAI) in New Jersey.

Animal Health is one of five primary divisions that make up the Department of Agriculture, along with the in-but-not-of State Agriculture Development Committee. The Division protects and monitors livestock for disease and other threats and administers the Humane Standards for the Care and Keeping of Livestock, which govern the minimum standards of humane care for livestock animals in New Jersey.

Dr. Patil succeeds Dr. Manoel Tamassia as the division director. Dr. Tamassia left the post in August for a position with the World Organization for Animal Health.

###

 To learn more about the New Jersey Department of Agriculture, find us on Facebook at www.facebook.com/NJDeptofAgriculture and www.facebook.com/JerseyFreshOfficial or Twitter @NJDA and @JerseyFreshNJDA.