Agricultural Marketing Service

The Agricultural Marketing Service (AMS) is an agency within the United States Department of Agriculture, and has Programs in five commodity areas:cotton and tobacco; dairy; fruit and vegetable; and seed; and poultry. These programs provide testing, standardization, grading and market news services for those commodities, and oversee marketing agreements and orders, administer research and promotion programs, and purchase commodities for federal food programs. The AMS enforces certain federal laws such as the Perishable Agricultural Commodities Act and the Federal Seed Act. The current Administrator as of May 6, 2013 is Anne L. Alonzo.

The AMS National Organic Program (NOP) develops, implements, and administers national production, handling, and labeling standards for organic agricultural products. The NOP also accredits the certifying agents (foreign and domestic) who inspect organic production and handling operations to certify that they meet USDA standards.

The AMS Science and Technology Program provides scientific support services to the agricultural community and AMS programs, including laboratory analyses, laboratory quality assurance, and coordination of scientific research conducted by other agencies for AMS. In addition, the program's Plant Variety Protection Office administers the Plant Variety Protection Act, by issuing Certificates of Protection for new varieties of plants which are sexually reproduced (by seed) or tuber-propagated. The program also conducts a program to collect and analyze data about pesticide residue levels in agricultural commodities. It also administers the Pesticide Recordkeeping program, which requires all certified private applicators of federally restricted-use pesticide to maintain records of all applications. The records will be put into a data base to help analyze agricultural pesticide use.

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