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.
Links to this article are strongly encouraged, and this article may be republished without further permission if published as written and if credit is given to the author, Integrated Crop Management News, and Iowa State University Extension and Outreach. If this article is to be used in any other manner, permission from the author is required. This article was originally published on January 25, 2019. The information contained within may not be the most current and accurate depending on when it is accessed.
- Pesticide Safety Education Extension Specialist