The National GAPs (Good Agricultural Practices) Program has developed a multi-faceted approach to encourage and assist growers, packers, and farm workers with the implementation of good agricultural practices to reduce microbial risks in fresh fruits and vegetables. This program combines research, education, and extension to create dynamic educational materials including books, video, photo novels, coloring book, posters, website, online course, high school agriculture curriculum, and magnets for the many diverse audiences that have an interest in produce food safety.

An increase of produce-associated foodborne illnesses highlighted the need for a food safety program designed specifically for produce. Though it is true that contamination can happen anywhere in the food system, including in retail stores and in the home, this program focuses on good agricultural practices implemented on farms and in packing houses to reduce microbial risks to fresh fruits and vegetables. In 1999, the National GAPs Program was organized to develop educational materials to increase grower, packer, and farmworker understanding of produce food safety issues. This interdisciplinary program includes collaborators in food science, horticulture, microbiology, and agricultural economics from 25 land-grant institutions throughout the U.S. By influencing production and packing practices, worker training programs, and sanitation protocols, this program improves the safety of fresh fruits and vegetables.

The National Good Agricultural Practices (GAPs) Program has brought together 26 land-grant institutions to create a farm food safety program capable of delivering regionally relevant information on how to implement GAPs on the farm and in the packing house. Since 1999, the program has created many educational materials, including "Food Safety Begins on the Farm: A Grower’s Guide", "A Grower Self Assessment of Food Safety Risks", a worker-training video entitled "Fruits, Vegetables and Food Safety: Health and Hygiene on the Farm", a field-hygiene poster series, photo novels, and a coloring book for children. All educational materials are thoroughly evaluated using focus groups as well as individual review by collaborators, federal agency personnel, and experts in related scientific fields. In addition to designing educational materials, the program has also conducted research on irrigation water and pesticides used in the production of fresh fruits and vegetables, has worked with agricultural economists to determine the financial impact of GAPs implementation on growers, and is working with collaborators in the Department of Education to develop a food safety curriculum for secondary school students and an online course for fresh produce industry personnel. To bring all of this information together and make it available to everyone through an Internet site, the Good Agricultural Practices Network for Education and Training (GAPsNET) has been developed.

The National GAPs Program provides educational materials to those who produce, harvest, pack, sell, and consume fruits and vegetables about produce safety. In total, fifteen different educational materials have been developed with over 80,000 publications distributed. The program has grown in new directions to include educational materials directed not only at growers, but farm workers, primary students, and secondary agriculture students. By providing education and training materials, the National GAPs Program has helped many produce companies maintain and grow their markets. Many people who have attended GAPs workshops and who order materials have indicated a positive effect on employee behavior, including proper hand washing and toilet use. Influencing the health and safety of workers who may be the only people to handle produce before it reaches the consumer has a very important and significant impact on the health and safety of everyone who consumes fresh produce. A quantifiable impact can be seen by tracking visitors to our newly designed website. From August 1, 2006 through December 21, 2007 there were over 18,000 unique visitors from around the world totally 1,480,800 hits to our website. The educational materials page and the research database are the most visited pages indicating that our educational materials are desirable and that we are providing access to additional resources for our constituents.

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