Preparing cooperative extension educators for meeting the agricultural pesticide safety training needs of Mexican farm workers

Worker advocates and federal agencies are increasingly concerned about the safety and health of migrant agricultural workers. Of primary concern is worker exposure to agricultural pesticides while harvesting fruits and vegetables.;Since 1970, the Environmental Protection Agency (US-EPA) has been responsible for monitoring agricultural pesticide use. In August of 1988 however, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) promulgated legislation for protecting workers from hazardous chemicals, including pesticides.;In April 1993, the EPA promulgated the Worker Protection Standard as regulations to mitigate worker pesticide exposures. This standard specified that pesticide labels must include prominent signal words such as DANGER, WARNING and CAUTION, and must also include the relationship of signal words to restricted-entry intervals (REIs).;Migrant agricultural workers are the primary harvesting labor on vegetable and fruit farms and many nurseries in the United States. Most migrant workers come from Mexico and have limited English language skills and little knowledge about pesticides.;A small population of Mexican farm workers in Chester County, Pennsylvania is not migrant or seasonal. They work year round on mushroom farms where nearly forty percent of the United State's fresh mushroom crop is grown annually.;Since many of these mushroom farms apply agricultural pesticides, their workers must be trained under the mandates of the Environmental Protection Agency's Worker Protection Standard (WPS).;Penn State Cooperative Extension serves the educational needs of the mushroom industry in Chester County, and with the promulgation of the WPS, it was appropriate that Extension plan and implement a pesticide safety program. This program must include: (1) meeting worker training requirements of the WPS; (2) restricting entry to growing rooms treated with pesticides; and (3) provisions for wash stations with soap, single-use towels and clean water.;Funds were provided by Penn State and the American Mushroom Institute for developing pesticide safety training as required by the standard. During program development between 1988-92, workers provided increased levels of input into the program development process. Worker involvement increased the observed levels of pesticide awareness and knowledge comprehension necessary for workplace compliance with the WPS.