Training materials for a safe use of agrochemicals

Published on 04/01/2017

Within the Sprëtzpass project funded by the Ministry of Agriculture, Viticulture and Consumer Protection, LIST experts in plant sciences and biotechnologies placed their expertise at the service of the Agriculture Technical Services Administration. Together, they had the ambition to prepare training materials and to carry out courses for the instructors who will train the Luxembourgish users of agrochemicals, mainly farmers or vineyard owners. This essential collaboration allows Luxembourg to comply with the EU Directive 2009/128/EC, a European regulation implemented in the national law of the 19th December 2014 on pharmaceutical products, that requires member states to respect the principles of Integrated Pest Management in Plant Protection and that includes the establishment of a training system for every person handling agrochemicals.

During almost two years, LIST experts worked on the development of training materials on the safe use of agrochemicals, contributing to avoid improper use and accidents with agrochemicals and raising its public acceptance as well as user and environmental health.

At the project, now completed, researchers have compiled not only a training framework for the safe use of pesticides according to the EU regulation and the national law, but also two books with 181 and 253 pages, each, describing the developed training framework. The books have the following topics:

« Sprëtzpass Modul A: Ausbildung von gewerblichen Assistenten », relating to the training of professional assistants - this first book covers the topics of risks of pesticides for human health and protective equipment, legal aspects and risk communication as well as risks of pesticide use for the environment.
« Sprëtzpass Modul B: Hilfestellungen zur Ausbildung von Betriebsteitem » outlining the training of professional pesticide user - the second book covers the topics of integrated pest management, properties of pesticides, the storage and the transport of pesticides, the diagnosis of plant pests and pathogens in agriculture, horticulture, viticulture and storage facilities as well as ergonomic aspects of application techniques.

Those two books, as well as the several hundred PowerPoint slides illustrating their content, will be used by teachers from the Lycée Technique Agricole in Ettelbrück and the Chamber of Agriculture to train the Luxembourgish pesticide users.