Get Funding for Farmworker Pesticide Safety Training

EPA’s Office of Pesticide Programs (OPP) is soliciting proposals from eligible parties for an EPA cooperative agreement to provide financial assistance to an eligible organization for an education and training pesticide safety program aimed at reducing exposure to pesticides for agricultural workers, their families and the agricultural community. The grantee will conduct a national train-the-trainer program to educate Farmworkers about how to reduce risks from pesticides. As part of this program, the grantee will also train pesticide safety educators who will work with farmworker service organizations, growers and other members of the agricultural community in key rural areas with high pesticide use and large numbers of farmworkers to conduct interactive pesticide safety programs for agricultural workers and their families. The grantee may utilize existing worker protection and children protection pesticide safety training materials or may develop new and/or improved materials to address pesticide safety issues for farmworkers and farmworker children.

Written materials need to be targeted at the low literacy, predominately Spanish speaking agricultural worker population. This will be a five year cooperative agreement, with an estimated total of $1,950,000. Approximately, $350,000 is expected to be available in FY 2010. At the conclusion of the first year, incremental funding of approximately $400,000 may be made available, depending on the Agency's budget in outlying years.