The Pesticide Safety Education Program (PSEP) at Iowa State University and the Iowa Department of Agriculture and Land Stewardship (IDALS), Pesticide Bureau announce a new EPA-approved PowerPoint and narrated video to train workers and handlers under the 2015 revised Worker Protection Standard (WPS).
The WPS is a federal regulation issued by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and enforced, in Iowa, by IDALS. The WPS applies whenever a pesticide is used in the production of agricultural plants that has an “Agricultural Use Requirements” section on the product label. The rule protects primarily 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).
The pesticide safety training materials, available at https://www.extension.iastate.edu/psep/ (go to 2017 and/or 2018 Training Tab – Training Resources), can be used in 2017, 2018 and beyond. These resources are in compliance with WPS requirements that go into effect January 2, 2018, including expanded training on instructions to reduce take-home exposure from pesticides on work clothing and other safety topics.
To train workers, slides 1 through 39 of the PowerPoint must be presented (first 21 minutes of narrated video). To train handlers, the PowerPoint must be presented in its entirety (38-minute video).
This project was funded by IDALS through a grant from the U.S. EPA.
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- Pesticide Safety Education Extension Specialist
- Retired Peticide Safety Education Program Specialist