Ben Laverty III talks about the new changes in 2019 for Pesticides. Discusses which companies need training, which chemicals require training, when are peak times for pesticide training, and how with all of the farm land around Kern County, how do schools affect pesticide training.
 

Transcript

Pesticide Changed in 2019

Pesticides in 2019. A lot of changes, one of which is that the work of protection standard for workers is now in every year training or as it used to be, every 
five years for your workers. Separate from that, we have what's called mixer loader applicator mechanic and supervisor training that was all come under Handler and those trainings are much more complex than they ever have been. So please whoever whatever you're doing, you have to have a certified trainer and you have to have the training done correctly here in California. In other states outside of California, the curriculum actually has to be approved by the EPA. In California the California DPR says it must adhere to California regs and if it does that it is certified.

Which companies are required to do Pesticide Training?

Those people requiring pesticide training is very broad. In agriculture every person was a mixer loader applicator or as a handler has to have training at one level or another. Whereas if you were in a greenhouse, cemetery, roadside application of pesticides, that's similar training but a little more specific to what goes on in those arenas, like landscaping and the like.

What chemicals need training?

What chemicals need training? Pesticide training is required for any pesticide that has an EPA number. And sometimes that pesticide is not really a pesticides, it could be an adjuvant or a surfactant. If it has an EPA number, that specifically has to be trained and then information given to the mixer loader applicator worker.

When do you run the most Pesticide Training classes?

Up and down, our pesticide training, it goes on all year long frankly. But we do the last several months of the year,  where people are just putting on their dormant spray, we get very busy. And then we get very very busy in pesticides in January February March April and May. It still stays high but not quite at the peak that it is during those months. The regs have change with pesticides and schools, within a quarter of a mile they are having some buffer zones where you cannot do that during school hours. 

What chemicals need training?

So agricultural personnel if the school is not, is closed for Christmas vacation for the weekend and there are no recreational activities at the school, they can go in and spray as long as the REI which is the re-entry interval is finished before school begins.

 

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