While the U.S. Department of 
Agriculture’s (USDA) Animal and Plant 
Health Inspection Service (APHIS) 
plays a significant role in world trade, 
it is only one of many organizations 
that does so. APHIS works with other 
agencies both inside and outside of 
USDA on international trade issues, 
such as marketing, transportation, 
animal and plant health policy, food 
safety, and agricultural trade policy. 
The Agricultural Marketing Service 
USDA's Agricultural Marketing Service 
(AMS)-plays a large role in agriculture both 
at home and abroad. AMS includes six com- 
modity divisions—Cotton, Dairy, Fruit and 
Vegetable, Livestock and Seed, Poultry, and 
Tobacco. The divisions employ specialists 
who provide standardization, grading, and 
market news services for those commodities. 
AMS enforces such Federal laws as the 
Perishable Agricultural Commodities Act 
and the Federal Seed Act. AMS commodity 
divisions also oversee marketing agreements 
and orders, administer research and promo- 
tion programs, and purchase commodities 
for Federal food programs like the National 
School Lunch, Summer Camp, and School 
Breakfast Programs; the Nutrition Program 
for the Elderly; and the Commodity 
Supplemental Food Program. 
2 Federal Agency Cooperation.in World Trade Acti 
The Science and Technology Division of AMS 
provides centralized scientific support to 
AMS programs, including laboratory analy- 
ses, laboratory quality assurance, coordina- 
tion of scientific research conducted by 
others for AMS, and statistical and mathe- 
matical consulting services. In addition, the 
Division’s Plant Variety Protection unit 
issues certificates of protection for new vari- 
eties of sexually reproduced plants. The 
Division also collects and analyzes data about 
pesticide residue levels in agricultural com- 
modities. The Division administers the 
Pesticide Recordkeeping Program, which 
requires all certified private applicators of 
federally restricted-use pesticides to main- 
tain records of all applications. The records 
are put into a database to help analyze agri- 
cultural pesticide use. 
The Transportation and Marketing Division 
brings together a unique combination of 
traffic managers, engineers, rural policy ana- 
lysts, international trade specialists, and 
agricultural marketing specialists to help 
solve problems of U.S. and world agricultural 
transportation. This division works to ensure 
that there is an efficient transportation sys- 
tem for rural America that begins at the farm 
gate and moves agricultural and other rural 
products over the Nation’s highways, rail- 
roads, airports, and waterways and into the 
domestic and international marketplace. The 
Division supplies research and technical 
information to producers, producer groups, 
shippers, exporters, rural communities, car- 
riers, Sovernment agencies, and universities. 
APHIS works closely with AMS on commod- 
ity and trade issues. And APHIS and AMS sci- 
entists work together and share information 
on a number of national agricultural issues. 
