NewsBits

EPA’s Office of Pesticide Programs (OPP) has made new pesticide label training available online. The training was developed primarily for EPA staff who review and approve pesticide labels, but the material is also expected to be useful for pesticide safety educators and for pesticide industry employees who develop and submit labels to EPA.

The pesticide label is one of EPA’s most critical tools for managing pesticide risks, and the enforceability of labels is the cornerstone of EPA and State programs that assure users are in compliance with label directions and precautions. Since the safe and legal use of pesticides depends on following label instructions, EPA pesticide label reviewers are trained to apply four core principles: labels need to be consistent with Agency policies and regulations, enforceable, clear, and accurate. By sharing our pesticide label training online, EPA is helping improve pesticide safety and the efficiency of the pesticide label review process.

This web-based training, which takes roughly three hours and includes four modules, is one of several OPP initiatives to improve label quality. It is intended as an introduction to basic principles and to identify the main resources available to label reviewers, particularly the recently updated Label Review Manual, which is also available to the public on-line.