Pesticide Safety Education Program

Identifying needs

Building coalitions

Making it happen

The value of robust land-grant university PSEPs

•  Provide basic and essential, state-specific pesticide safety education on the safe and legal handling of pesticides from purchase to use and/or disposal

•  Expand and support the network of pesticide safety educators

•  Enhance educational opportunities for applicators seeking certification, for non-certified groups whose jobs involve pesticides, and for the general public

•  Collaborate with state agencies

•  Cooperate with the network of PSEPs, and other Land-Grant University extension and research experts….

•  Furnish objective, science-based support to state and federal regulators who must increasingly assess proposed pesticide-related laws….

•  Offer unique access to the state land-grant university’s broad extension and research knowledge base….

The value of robust land-grant university PSEPs

Federal funding for PSEP has fallen to zero.

About half of US states/territories have built self-sustaining programs.

•  PSEP updates and distributes all pesticide study manuals

•  PSEP partners with Extension agents to train private applicators (growers)

•  PSEP partners with insurance and industry orgs to train commercial/public applicators

•  PSEP partners with research scientists to research issues as needed (for example: respirator effectiveness)

•  PSEP is known as CEPEP

•  CEPEP maintains the calendar of training events for CO

•  PSEP offers more webinars than in-person training events

•  PSEP has limited capacity to collect revenue

•  Private training companies have filled the gap in CO and some other states

•  PSEP holds pre-certification training events in cooperation with other entities

•  Montana Department of Agriculture holds post-certification training events on a regular basis

•  Montana Department of Agriculture updates pesticide study materials by funding University experts

•  PSEP updates and distributes the study materials

•  PSEP provides a lot of WPS training for trainers, workers, and pesticide handlers

•  County Commissioners, non-profits, and private companies deliver a lot of re-certification training events in addition to UC County agents (outside of PSEP)

Year 1 goals:

•  Create a team of advisory stakeholders to guide PSEP priorities

•  Partner with others to update study materials for pre-license preparation

•  Partner with others to plan training courses for recertification credits

•  Create web-based pre-license training modules

•  Build capacity within the OSU Extension system to improve and increase pesticide-related training events

•  Seek additional funding streams

Ongoing Goals

•  Increase capacity to provide training in Spanish

•  Increase capacity to provide training in southern and eastern Oregon

•  Partner with public, private, and non-profit entities to deliver training

What are some gaps/needs?

Who should I partner with?

•  OSU Extension faculty and staff

•  Pesticide Analytical & Response Center (PARC)

•  Oregon Wine Board

•  Oregon Association of Nurseries

•  Wheat League

•  OHSU - Oregon Healthy Workforce

•  OSU College of Public Health

•  SAIF Corporation •  Oregon Pest Control

Association

§  Oregon Tilth

§  Northwest Coalition for Alternatives to Pesticides (NCAP)

§  Xerces Society

§  Wilco, Simplot, etc.

§  Community Colleges

§  PSEPs at WSU, UC Davis, University of Idaho, etc.

§  National Pesticide Safety Education Center (NPSEC)

§  PSEP-IMI and National Stakeholder Team

§  _______________________

How can I partner with you to improve or initiate pesticide safety educational training or materials?

Building a PSEP Stakeholder Team

Likely to meet twice per year

Pesticide Safety Education Program

Kaci Buhl – PSEP Coordinator

kaci.buhl@oregonstate.edu