Under the Worker Protection Standard (WPS) as revised in 2015, agricultural workers and pesticide handlers must be trained annually in pesticide safety.
Who needs to be trained?
Both agricultural workers (people employed to perform work activities related to the production of agricultural plants) and pesticide handlers (people employed to mix, load, or apply pesticides for use on agricultural establishments in the production of agricultural plants) must be trained every 12 months, counting from the end of the month in which the previous training was completed. Currently certified pesticide applicators and certified crop advisors are exempt from WPS worker and handler training.
Training requirements
Trainers must be qualified, and the training must be delivered (orally or audio-visually) in a manner that workers and handlers can understand. Training materials must be approved by EPA and have an EPA approval number and an EPA statement of approval for use in WPS training. Employers must keep training records for two years. Additional information on pesticide safety training requirements can be found on the Pesticide Educational Resources Collaborative (PERC) website at http://pesticideresources.org/wps/guide/training.html.
WPS training materials
The Pesticide Safety Education Program (PSEP) at Iowa State University offers a video for workers and handlers at https://vimeo.com/215241678. WPS training materials are also available from PERC at http://pesticideresources.org/wps/training/index.html.
For more information on WPS please contact Betsy Buffington at bbuffing@iastate.edu or 515-294-7293. Additional WPS resources and compliance assistance can be found at http://pesticideresources.org.