The Environmental Protection Agency has released a new set of Worker Protection Standards, reports The Rural Blog. According to the new EPA rules, children under 18 will now be prohibited from handling pesticides in the US. Farm workers will also require pesticide training every year, a change to the old rule that required training every five years. And the new rules require posting of no-entry signs for areas containing the most hazardous pesticides. The signs will prohibit entry until residues decline to a safe level.
According to the EPA, illnesses from pesticide exposure cost 10 to 15 billion dollars a year. Most of these pesticide exposure incidents are preventable, hence the new rules. The new regulations will only cost large farms three or four hundred dollars a year, and smaller farms will pay half that.