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AMI 2009 year end report.

Article Excerpt
Thank you for allowing this time to share the AMI 2009 annual report, which briefly summarizes and highlights some of the accomplishments of the AMI this year. The AMI Board of Directors, Committee Chairs, Administrators, members and volunteers all have contributed to many areas of the mushroom industry with the goal of enriching, improving, and helping to sustain our industry.

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Food Safety

During this eventful year, AMI has continued one of its most ambitious programs in recent history - a coordinated food safety initiative. Dr. Luke LaBorde from Penn State, Dr. Sergio Nieto-Montenegro from Hispanic Workforce Management and the industry's Food Safety Task Force (FSTF) completed a thorough review of the mushroom specific Good Agricultural Practices (MGAP) program and developed a mushroom-specific audit.

We worked with the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) to develop the audit -only the third commodity-specific audit approved. Our goal is to have one standard for Good Agricultural Practices on mushroom farms. Another component of the FSTF project was to work with implementing the food safety plan on a "typical farm" in Chester County, PA as a pilot test to see the practical application of forms, templates and other materials developed for MGAP implementation. Four training sessions were held in Kennett Square, PA with more than 100 growers attending each session.

In December 2008, Kaolin Mushroom Farms became the first to pass the USDA MGAP...

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