Pesticide Regulations Not Daunting for State Growers

Washington’s ahead of the ball game when it comes to new federal regulations for pesticides. I’m Susan Allen with Washington Ag Today. The majority of the changes to the federal Agricultural Farmworker Protection Standard will take effect January 1 2017. According to Ofelio Borges supervisor of the Washington State Department of Agricultures farm worker education program, our state is ahead of the curve and a model other’s look to.

Borges: For the most part those changes will not be very significant for our growers. The reason our program is so unique is that we have such a strong connection to the ag industry.

He explained why it won’t be too hard for most growers to comply

Borges: We have to do some minor adjustments but for the most part it won't be very significant for our growers in our state because the programs our growers have been offering have been well above and beyond the national worker protection standards. Most growers are sending their people to get trained every year, on a yearly basis, so for all those going from providing training from their handlers from once every 5 years to every year it should not be a big change because they are already doing it. We lready had most of the new content for training requirements included in our training curriculum, again we’ll bee doing some adjustments, but it won’t be very significant.”

With all the training classes this group offers r for farm workers and supervisors it’s no wonder Washington State has become a model for other states to follow regarding the Agricultural farmworker education programs.