EPA Signs Cooperative Agreement with the Association of Farmworker Opportunity Programs to Support Farmworker Training
For Release: October 9, 2015
EPA has entered into a cooperative agreement with the Association of Farmworker Opportunity Programs (AFOP) to develop and administer a pesticide safety training program for farmworkers, their families and other members of the agricultural community.
The AFOP cooperative agreement will support a national network of over 150 pesticide safety trainers in more than 30 states to provide pesticide worker safety training to migrant and seasonal farmworkers and their families. The training will include educational material appropriate for low-literacy and multilingual audiences.
Pesticide safety training helps prevent pesticide exposure incidents for farmworkers and their families. With the recently announced revisions to the Worker Protection Standard, farmworkers will now receive annual training on many topics, including proper use of personal protective equipment and how to reduce take-home exposure. Previously, federal law only required training once every five years.
The total funding for the five-year period of the cooperative agreement is about $2.5 million, with $500,000 available for the first year of the agreement. The application solicitation for this agreement was announced in April 2015.
To learn more about pesticide worker safety, visit www2.epa.gov/pesticide-worker-safety.