WASHINGTON – Today, Oct. 1, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is announcing three new funding opportunities to support pesticide safety education for farmworkers, training for health care providers to better address pesticide-related illness, and technical assistance to support managing these grants. A total of almost $10 million will be awarded to at least four grantees to carry out this work over five years.
Over two million farmworkers help grow and harvest the food that feeds our nation. Farmworkers and their families are at high risk for pesticide exposure due to their work in and around areas where pesticides are used. Additionally, pesticide-related illness is widely misdiagnosed and underreported, in part because health care providers receive only limited training on occupational and environmental health. This population is largely comprised of people of color and immigrants with limited English proficiency, low incomes, and limited access to health care, making the health and safety of farmworker communities an issue of environmental justice.
“These programs are a critical step in EPA’s commitment to environmental justice,” said Assistant Administrator for the Office of Chemical Safety and Pollution Prevention Michal Freedhoff. “Farmworkers are at greater risk of developing pesticide-related illnesses, which is often misdiagnosed and mistreated. It’s vital that we invest in improving pesticide safety education and health care for farmworker communities.”
More information about each funding opportunity can be found below.
Farmworker Training and Education Program for Pesticide Safety
EPA is soliciting applications from community-based farmworker nonprofit organizations with experience in training agricultural workers or pesticide handlers or developing educational materials for them to support training, materials development and outreach to farmworker communities on pesticide safety, as well as to help them understand their rights under the Agricultural Worker Protection Standard (WPS) – a regulation that seeks to limit occupational pesticide exposure. The new program builds on decades of efforts by previous grantees while also including new measures to ensure projects are tailored to the need and culture of farmworker communities and in farmworkers’ native languages. EPA anticipates awarding two cooperative agreements to community-based farmworker organizations. A total of up to $6.3 million will be awarded to these five-year agreements beginning in 2025.
Please see EPA’s Farmworker Training and Education Program for Pesticide Safety website for more information on this agreement, eligibility and how to apply.
Pesticides Health Care Initiative
EPA is soliciting applications from nonprofit organizations with experience training health care providers who serve farmworker populations for a five-year cooperative agreement of up to $2.1 million to improve health care providers’ ability to prevent, recognize, treat, manage and report pesticide-related illness. This will be accomplished in part by strengthening health care providers’ consideration of nonmedical factors influencing the health of patients at high risk of pesticide illness – the conditions in which they are born, grow, work, live and age.
Please see EPA’s Pesticides Health Care Initiative website for more information on this agreement, eligibility and how to apply.
Pesticide Safety Grants Technical Assistance
EPA is soliciting applications for a cooperative agreement of up to $1.47 million to provide technical assistance with grants administration and compliance for grantees of the Farmworker Training and Education Program for Pesticide Safety and Pesticides Health Care Initiative agreements described above. This Grants Technical Assistance agreement will ensure that grantees have the support and resources necessary to manage EPA cooperative agreements. The grantee will also create resources to help organizations with the application process and preparing applications for pesticide worker safety cooperative agreements in the future. The technical assistance agreement will also be five years to align with the project periods for the agreements it will support.
Please see EPA’s Pesticides Grant Technical Assistance Program website for more information on this agreement, eligibility and how to apply.