Annual Reports

2004—Pesticide Safety Education Program

The Pesticide Safety Education Program (PSEP) has played a vital role in California and contributed immeasurably to the UC IPM Program. With Pat O'Connor-Marer's recent retirement, we realized we could not replace his expertise, and the loss of both state and grant funds prevented us from continuing the program. However, the university will continue pesticide safety training within the broader mission of the UC Davis Western Center for Agricultural Health and Safety.

Tim Stock has joined the Center as their health and safety educator, where he will expand his background to address other health issues. Jennifer Weber continues her pesticide safety training efforts with Arizona Department of Agriculture in its Agricultural Consultation and Training Program. Gale Pérez has moved to University Extension.

The PSEP staff has left a fine legacy, and we miss them.

Under the leadership of Patrick O?Connor-Marer, who retired Sept. 30, the UC IPM Pesticide Safety Education Program (PSEP) carried out innovative outreach programs throughout California from 1987 through 2004.

The staff continuously updated and tailored its products to be responsive to the needs of California?s diverse labor force. They conducted hundreds of workshops, reaching the entire state by leveraging the effects of its train-the-trainer approach, and produced a large number of written resource and training products in multiple languages.

Rick Roush, director of the UC Statewide IPM Program, praises the pesticide safety education coordinator and his colleagues. ?Pat has led PSEP through a number of accomplishments and milestones, but perhaps one of the most impressive is that they have trained more than 4,600 pesticide safety instructors who, in turn, trained more than 870,000 agricultural workers in California.?

The following are highlights of training courses and materials developed by PSEP.

For details of PSEP?s accomplishments, see Pesticide Safety Education Program: Summary of Activities.

Workshops and Seminars

PSEP?s train-the-trainer workshops, focusing on a number of topics and targeting diverse cultural groups, were dynamic and interactive by deliberate design. The workshops were also language-specific, and they incorporated diverse types of learning activities to accommodate different reading proficiency and educational levels. Some of the types of programs developed are:

• Worker Protection Standard—Trainers of Pesticide Handlers and Agricultural Fieldworkers
• Recognizing and Managing Pesticide Illnesses and Injuries
• Preventing Pesticide Drift and Water Contamination
• Becoming a Trainer of Trainers
• Environmental Protection Agency?s National WPS Assessment—Master Trainer and Train-the-Trainer Workshops
• Hands-on Workshops
• Pest Management Seminars
• English-as-a-Second-Language classes

Books and Other Publications

• Pesticide Application Compendium. This series of books for commercial pesticide applicators is the authoritative reference for pesticide safety and the official study guide for people studying for California?s pest control licenses. The core manual (Volume 1) has been translated into Arabic, Russian, and Spanish.
• Other Publications. Including books, a game, and videos for farmworkers and small-scale farmers in English, Spanish, Tagalog, Cambodian, Hmong, Lao, Korean, and Chinese.

Top of page