EPA Releases New Pesticide Protection Regulations to Take Effect in 2017

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) first updated pesticide protection regulations in 1992, requiring people who grow and harvest more food 0.2 billion to implement them. Recently, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency issued new pesticide protection regulations, which will take effect in early 2017, which may have a profound impact on American farms and workers.

Pesticides may cause a variety of adverse health effects, including skin rashes, nausea and headaches, birth defects, reproductive disorders, increased risk of certain types of cancer, and exposure to pesticides during pregnancy may cause learning and behavioral problems in children after birth.

Still, more than 0.9 billion pounds of pesticides are used annually on American farms. The EPA estimates that about 10000 to 20000 farm workers have been diagnosed with pesticide poisoning, and 1800 to 3000 cases of occupational pesticide exposure are reported each year. Ensuring fewer people are exposed to these pesticides can make agricultural work safer.

New content of new regulations

1. The new regulations will pay more attention to the protection of young people

the new rules will set a minimum age for pesticide applicators -18. Young children are more vulnerable to pesticides, and new research shows that adolescents are more sensitive to pesticide exposure.

Previously, there was no age limit for pesticide workers. As long as they were accompanied by their parents, children as young as 12 could also work legally on the farm. Now, young people under the age of 18 will be banned from areas where pesticides have been treated for less than 48 hours (greenhouses where pesticides have been treated for less than 4 hours). However, this age limit does not apply to members of the farmer's family.

2. Farms must provide more training and information for workers

under the new rules, farms must provide training to workers every year and before entering sites that have been treated with pesticides within 30 days of work, compared to the original requirement of training every five years.

The training should also be expanded to "include how to reduce the chances of bringing home pesticide contamination," EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy recently noted ". Information on pesticide hazards must be posted in the center of the workplace in both Spanish and English.

The new rules will also require employers to keep records of pesticide use for the last two years, as well as training materials for farm workers, helping to make it easier and better to track any violations and ensure compliance.

3. The farm must provide more and better equipment

farms must also now provide all workers with personal protective equipment that meets the requirements of the Labor and Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) for other industries. For example, respirators should be worn correctly and used effectively.

The employer must also provide a sufficient amount of water to ensure that workers perform cleaning and emergency decontamination after pesticide application.

Whistleblowers will be protected

the new rules include a new anti-retaliation standard. U.S. Secretary of Labor Thomas E. Perez explained that this will allow farm workers to report safety violations more freely." The new rules will encourage farm workers to complain about pesticide safety violations, which will be kept confidential by the authorities, eliminating the fear of losing their jobs as a result. This is particularly important for the agricultural industry, which has many short-term workers.

The new rules will also allow "designated" farm worker representatives, such as family members, to be informed of pesticide application information kept by employers for medical diagnosis.

Advocacy and Disagreement

the news was enthusiastically embraced by farm workers and hired farmers, as well as environmentalists. Virginia Ruiz, director of careers and environmental health for farmhands justice, called the improvement "critically important". And Andrea Delgado, Earthjustice's senior legislative representative, said, "We are pleased that the EPA has finally taken steps to eliminate historical inequities between farm workers and other workers."

"The EPA's new rules provide the same protections for other farm farmers in the United States as farm workers, protecting them from pesticides that can cause dangerous cancers and birth defects," UFW's Rodriguez said.

"This affects everyone's real life every day, and its importance is self-evident," said Jeannie Economos, coordinator of the Florida Pesticide Safety and Environmental Sanitation Project Farmer's Association.

On the other hand, the American Farm Bureau Federation (AFBF) and the Agricultural Retailers Association (ARA) have questioned the costs and benefits of the new regulations. The ARA said the new rules "are based on unfounded assumptions." AFBF said this would "open the door for anti-pesticide activists to take advantage of the new rules to make no difference at all for worker safety." While most farm laborers say that overall, the new rules are a big step forward, some groups, including Earthjustice, had hoped to impose stricter restrictions on re-entry to pesticide-treated areas.

Some also suggested that the EPA require on-the-spot shower decontamination, but the EPA did not write this recommendation into the new rules. Another measure desired by the farm farmers' representatives is continuous medical supervision. The EPA's explanation for this is that there are enough protections in the new regulations, and medical monitoring is too expensive compared to what it can do.

This rule comes at a time when many widely used pesticides are under increasing scrutiny for their health effects. Earlier this year, the World Health Organization listed glyphosate as a possible carcinogen, and California has proposed adding glyphosate and three other pesticides, including malathion, to its locally designated list of carcinogens.

Source: First Agricultural Economic Network | Release Date: October 26, 2015 | Responsible Editor: Zhai Tianchang