Maintenance Gardener Outreach Pilot Program

About the Program

Category: Civic Education and Public Information (Best in Category)

Year: 2017

Maintenance Gardener Pest Control Businesses (MGBs) routinely use pesticides in residential and commercial settings. The County of San Diego maintains a robust pesticide inspection program and determined a number of MGBs conducting pesticide applications lacked the required licensing, certification and pesticide safety training. Without this training, these MGBs posed a higher risk of contaminating the environment and affecting the health and well-being of San Diego County residents. MGBs stated the primary reason for not securing the proper licensing, certification, and pesticide safety training was state exam availability. State exams for MGBs had not been routinely conducted in San Diego County. The County’s Department of Agriculture Weights & Measures (AWM) recognized the disproportionality of exam availability and sought out a partnership with the California Department of Pesticide Regulation (DPR) to bring the exam and training to San Diego County in the form of a pilot project. AWM delivered targeted outreach, provided two workshops in Spanish and one in English, and proctored certification exams to the attendees online and on paper. The project outcome was a certification passing rate of 86 percent (66/77 attendees passed), which is higher than the State’s passing rate of approximately 70 percent. MGBs in San Diego County are now more aware of the laws and regulations pertaining to the safe and effective use of pesticides and therefore more likely to apply pesticides in a safe manner. This increases the safety of San Diego County residents and protects the environment. This pilot project serves as a model the State can replicate throughout California to increase MGB certification and the safe use of pesticides.