Welcome to the National Good Agricultural Practices (GAPs) Program. The goal of the National GAPs Program is to reduce microbial risks in fruits and vegetables by developing a comprehensive extension and education program for growers and packers.

The National GAPs Program was established in 1999, funded by CSREES-USDA and US-FDA, and based at Cornell University. The GAPs Program has collaborators in 26 states throughout the nation and has created many educational materials to help implement good agricultural practices on the farm.

The Good Agricultural Practices Network for Education and Training (GAPsNET), creates a universal portal bringing GAPs related information together in one, user friendly web site for growers, packers, farm workers, extension educators, scientists, state and federal government personnel, and other interested stakeholders. Every month more than 1500 individuals from around the world visit the GAPsNET.

GAPsNET provides a searchable database of research and extension articles, access to multilingual educational materials, and links to GAPs collaborators and programs at other institutions. The GAPsNET searchable citation database is updated through monthly, automated searches of AGRICOLA and PubMed databases. Site users can search under specific GAPs topics such as water, manure, and worker training as well as by a specific commodity, or can search the entire database using key words to find the most current GAPs information and recommendations.

GAPsNET was created by the National GAPs Program at Cornell University with support from its collaborators at 26 Land Grant Universities across the US. It was developed with assistance from Cornell Cooperative Extension IT-team and library professionals at Cornell University’s Mann Library.

For more information, contact Betsy Bihn.