A24—Uncastw Farming, Saturday, October 9,1982
Mushroom growers ask foreign
KENNET SQUARE - Following
a split-decision 2-2 vote, the U.S.
International Trade Commission
recently recommended a 21 million
pound quota be put on imported
mushrooms from China. As of
Sept. 30, President Reagan has 60
days to negotiate -an orderly
marketing agreement with China,
and other supplying countries such
as Hong Kong, Taiwan, and Korea,
impose a tariff or to take no action,
reports Jack Kooker, executive
director of the American
Mushroom Institute, headquar
tered here.
“The president can now replace
the increased duties proclaimed by
President Carter with quantitative
limitations under an orderly
marketing agreement,” Kooker
ja facing
mushroom growers with Berks County legislator Gus Yatron,
seated, are from left, Bernie Ciuffetelli, Avondale; Howard
Malick, Kennett Square; Henry Roberts, Toughkenamon; and
Tony Maddaiozzo, Avondale, partially hidden by AMl’s Jack
Kooker.
BY SHEILA MILLER
KENNETT SQUARE - The
American Mushroom Institute, the
27-year-old organization that
represents the nation’s 30
mushroom-growing states, is
headquartered here in a
remodeled brick home along busy
Route 1, just 30 minutes from
Philadelphia.
Serving as executive director to
this mushroom organization which
boasts 250 members out of a total
585 growers nationwide is former
Berks County dairyman Jack
Kooker.
Kooker, who left his 22-year
career as a dairy farmer in
Blandon, accepted the role as
Working as the American Mushroom Institute’s executive
director keeps Jack Kooker, a former Berks County dairy
Z r Z 6 n r^ hOPP J ne ' Answering questions from national
newspaper and magazine reporters is an everyday occurance
Sguarg.^.,,,
stated. “Such an agreement should
use the 78 millibn pound base year
recommended by Commissioner
Moore in 1980.
“Taiwan has already asked the
president to suspend the present
increased duties and negotiate an
orderly marketing agreement with
the principle supplying countries.
And the Korean Agriculture
Department has stated there can
be no improvement in their exports
to the United States because of
continuing People’s Republic of
China dumping which is expected
to continue'unless the U.S. sets up
an import quota for each export
country.”
The U.S. Dept, of Agriculture
reports the U.S. and European
Community account for 38 and 28
Berks dairyman picks mushroom Career
spokesman for AMI two years ago,
and stepped into a job that calls
him to Washington D.C. at least
twice a week and finds him jetting
all the way to California to meet
with mushroom growers there.
Although the difference between
raising mushrooms and milking
100 registered Holsteins' would
seem to be as different as black
and white, Kooker did not come to
the job and its unending challenges
unprepared.
After having made the decision
'to leave dairying, Kooker pursued
a master’s degree in political
science from Penn State at the
local Berks Campus. While at
tending evening classes for four
Joe Versagli, Sr., center, president of the American Mushroom Institute and a mushroom
grower from Landenberg, Chester County, was all smiles last Wednesday as he and AMI’S
executive director, Jack Kooker, presented U.S. Agriculture Secretary John Block with a basket
of Pennsylvania mushrooms. That same day, AMI delivered 1,100 pounds of mushrooms to
members of Congress, all donated by Keystone state growers
percent of world canned lightning will destroy the
mushroom respectively. Taiwanese and Korean share of the
Where the E.C. limits its imports U.S. market and materially affect
to one-third of its market, imports any chances of the U.S.
to the U.S. account for more than (mushroom) industry adjusting to
50 percent of the domestic market, this extremely serious situation,”
“Unless the Chinese mushroom emphasized Kooker.
cloud the yellow peril which Since 1979, China has rapidly
hangs over the U.S. market is established itself as the dominant
discharged soon by an orderly exporter of mushrooms, the. AMI
marketing agreement, its export director explained.' In 1979,
years, Kooker spent his days
working for a Temple mushroom
operation owned by Nick and
Anthony Maggiaro.
“I got my exposure to the
mushroom industry through
working at Winter Garden
Mushroom Farm,” Kooker says,
adding he did everything from
picking mushrooms to driving
trucks.
During the same period, Kooker
devoted a great deal of his time
serving as the Berks County
president to the county’s Farmers’
Association. Now, when lobbying
for the mushroom industry,
Kooker says he works under the
umbrella of various agricultural
organizations, including Farm
Bureau, Grange, and Farmers’
Union.
While he was dairying in Berks
County, Kooker also served as
chairman of the Pennsylvania
Milk Marketing Advisory Council
and chaired two of the three state
milk referendums. His experience
in conducting these referendums
has given him the background for
carrying out a similar niarket
promotion question within the
mushroom industry, (See related
story).
Kooker, who says he has tried to
model himself after the late Jerry
Litton, a legislator, lobbyist and
cattleman who was killed in a
plane crash, comments his
motivation revolves around
representing all of agriculture
well. “I know how important
agriculture is, not only to Penn
sylvania and the nation, but also
the world,” he says.
One thing Kooker doesn’t like is
the word “industry” and its link to
moshrooms. “I prefer to call it
mushroom agriculture.. Somehow
the word industry gives people the
k,
connotation that mushrooms
part of, agriculture,.’
import
Helping Jack with the AMI office work are Tina McLenna
left secretanr-receptionist; Pat Hash, seated, bookkeeper;’
and Alma Rigler, assistant executive director.
he explains.
semantics aside and protecting their special
going to statistics, no one can agricultural commodity
argue with figures that show mushroom growers pay AMI a
r ia J S th L lea^ g t te yeart y dues ofonfcenfirTO
in mushroom production, har- foot of production. And Kooker
quickl y P oints out the fact that
year. In the U.S., mushroom battling foreign imnnr+<s "tohinh
production rea. ched 517 million threaten to hm U.S SudS^m
pounds, valued at $419 milhon. And agriculture takes thoSdTS
figures released by crop reporting doUars and producer^JpL?
agencies estimate production will Helping Kooker anrfthT a mt
continue at about the same level of Stem ta S^^ng^gS
nert year, with growers using 141 are three full-time employees
To help pay for the services they bookkeeper aiSina Mc£a’
promoting, and,., secretery.^eeptionktl
uotas
Chinese exports were only three
percent of total U.S. imports. In
the first six months of 1982,
Chinese imports plus imports from
its satellites Hong Kong and Macao
accounted for 80 percent of the
imports.
“A marketing agreement (under
Section 203 of the Trade Act of
1974) limiting imports to 40 percent
(Turn to Page A 29)