New deal creates fifth largest crop protection company in the world
|
For Immediate Release
Contact:
Aaron Weibe
Communications & Engagement Manager
aaronweibe@npsec.us
July 24th, 2018 (Detroit, MI) – The National Pesticide Safety and Education Center (NPSEC) Board of Directors voted to established its 2018-2019 Executive Committee:
In addition to the Executive Committee, the Board of Directors includes:
There are vacancies on the Board of Directors representing the American Association of Pesticide Control Officials (AAPCO), Association of Structural Pest Control Regulatory Officials (ASPCRO), and a Pesticide Safety Educator from the north central region.
“I am honored to have the privilege to serve as the Chair of the National Pesticide Safety Education Center (NPSEC) Executive Committee,” state Candace Bartholomew, newly elected Board Chair. “As we continue to support Extension pesticide safety education programs, I look forward to the good work and collaborations that this organization will accomplish to strengthen the national system of these programs, and improve the quality, consistency, accessibility, and outcomes of pesticide safety education throughout the country.”
Executive Director, Tom Smith, noted that “the transition to a formal Board of Directors and the election of the Executive Officers is a major milestone for the National Pesticide Safety Education Center (NPSEC). The Board of Directors includes PSEPs and industry partners that were part of the SWAT Team vision of creating NPSEC, as well as new PSEPs that bring a fresh perspective to the NPSEC mission of serving and supporting extension Pesticide Safety Education Programs. This provides excellent leadership for NPSEC as we seek to provide tools and educational resources to state PSEPs to better meet the needs of each state’s learners while increasing state PSEPs sustainability, move our PSEP collaboration goals forward, and become a self-sustaining center. On behalf of the NPSEC staff, we are excited about working with this dedicated leadership team.”
The NPSEC Board held the election during its quarterly Board meeting on July 18th, 2018.
About NPSEC
The National Pesticide Safety Education Center (NPSEC) supports and serves Extension Pesticide Safety Education Programs (PSEPs) to be the premier national source of high quality research-based pesticide safety education. Additional information about NPSEC can be found at npsec.us
|
|
As of December 19th, 2018, WPS Pesticide Safety Training must be conducted using EPA-approved materials that have the full expanded content in the 2015 WPS. You can view the notice here.
At the NPSEC Store, you will find EPA-approved materials with expanded 2015 WPS content. To visit the NPSEC Store, please click here.
Pollinator Week is an annual celebration of the hard work honey bees and other insects and animals undertake every day to support our food and healthy ecosystems. This year the Honey Bee Health Coalition is marking the week by sharing our recent tools, resources and initiatives to support the industrious and indispensable honey bee. Read on below for more about each of these efforts and how you can help support honey bee health.
Pollinator Week is also marked by a variety of celebrations, educational opportunities, and more. Find an event near you to celebrate honey bees and learn more about how beekeepers, farmers, and everyday people are working to support bees. Our friends at the Pollinator Partnership are tracking events throughout North America on an interactive map: www.pollinator.org/pollinator-week
Varroa Guide Updates
The Coalition’s Tool for Varroa Management Guide has helped thousands of beekeepers utilize best practices for detecting, monitoring, and confronting Varroa mite infestations. Given the popularity of this landmark guide, the Coalition has regularly updated it to ensure it has the best and most up-to-date information available. The Coalition recently released the 7th edition of the guide, which you can download by visiting honeybeehealthcoalition.org/varroa.
Since its release, the Tools for Varroa Management Guide has been widely utilized to help beekeepers — in North America and beyond — monitor and control these destructive parasites. The guide has been downloaded more than 12,000 times. Be sure to share the guide, the related demonstration videos, and bee club presentation with your friends and fellow beekeepers.
Bee Integrated Demonstration Project
The Coalition’s Bee Integrated Demonstration Projectlaunched in 2017 to show best practices in a real-world setting. Beekeepers and farmers are partnering in North Dakota to plant pollinator forage with the help of the Bee & Butterfly Habitat Fund, implement best practices from the North Dakota Pollinator Plan, and utilize the practices outlined in the Coalition’s Tools for Varroa Management Guide with support from the Bee Informed Partnership.
In 2018, the project has expanded to include additional beekeeper-farmer pairs. Learn more about the Bee Integrated Demonstration Project, its supporters and key partners, and what’s next for this exciting effort by visiting honeybeehealthcoalition.org/bee-integrated.
Soybean Best Management Practices
Pollinator habitat and the plants bees rely upon often border soybean fields throughout North America. Soybeans can be an attractive source of pollen and nectar under certain circumstances. Earlier this year, the Coalition unveiled a series of new best management practices for soybean growers to ensure they and honey bees can continue to work together to support healthy ecosystems and the crops consumers count on. These voluntary best management practices — available at honeybeehealthcoalition.org/soybmps/ — complement information already available to growers, including mandatory pesticide label instructions and advisory warnings.
Hive Management Resources
The Coalition has worked with experienced beekeepers and experts to develop and vet resources to help beekeepers — professional and amateur alike — support bee health. These resources have been a huge hit with Coalition members and others around the world.
Building on this success, Bee Culture Magazine’s Kim & Jim Show showcased the Coalition’s hive management resources in a recent webinar. Be sure to check out this great episode and share it with your friends.
Recommendations to USDA on private lands conservation programs
In May, the Coalition partnered with the Monarch Collaborative to meet with USDA Under Secretary for Farm and Foreign Agricultural Service Bill Northey in Washington, D.C. The Coalition and Monarch Collaborative highlighted the importance of the department’s private lands programs in supporting pollinator habitat on farms across the country. The two groups also urged Northey to enhance pollinator habitat in USDA private land conservation programs by improving outreach and implementation associated with these programs as well as the quality and cost-effectiveness of program specifications and habitat plantings. Click here to read the joint recommendations.
Varroacide Research and Testing
The Coalition announced in March that it has secured a more than $475,000 grant from the Foundation for Food and Agriculture Research to facilitate the testing of chemical compounds that could help beekeepers more effectively treat Varroa mites. This grant, matched by participants and industry members to provide more than $1 million in total support, also will document how mites develop resistance to treatments.
The funding will support the identification, lab testing, and field testing over the next three years of “orphaned” chemical compounds that have known acaricidal (miticide) activity but have not been specifically tested against Varroa mites. Many of these compounds are trapped in a bottleneck where the costs of testing and commercializing them are too steep for testing, effectively leaving them on the shelf.
Bee Nutrition Challenge
In January, the Coalition selected four teams of researchers and innovators as the winners of the inaugural Bee Nutrition Challenge. The finalists and winners presented their ideas in a “Shark Tank”-style event at the 2018 American Bee Research Conference. Learn more about the Bee Nutrition Challenge, the winners, and information about their projects by visiting honeybeehealthcoalition.org/nutrition-challenge.
Engaging stakeholders across food and agriculture
The Coalition works throughout the year to engage with beekeepers, farmers, and supply chain members across food and agriculture. This year, we’ve met up with farmers and beekeepers at their annual meetings and piloted a new training for crop pest advisors and applicators and a variety of events.
Most recently, we were at the Sustainable Brands conference in Vancouver discussing the critical role of bees in our food system and how consumer-facing brands can help.
Look for us next month at the Heartland Apiculture Society Meeting.
Looking ahead
The Coalition is excited to celebrate Pollinator Week and looking forward to supporting bee health year-round. Help us spread the word about our current tools, resources and initiatives – and stay tuned for more to come!
The Honey Bee Health Coalition is committed to protecting your privacy and personal data. This mailing list is used to share periodic newsletters with information about Coalition tools, resources, initiatives, events, and other information. You are receiving this email because you signed up or have been involved in related dialogues in the past. You can opt out anytime by clicking the unsubscribe button at the bottom of this or any other Honey Bee Health Coalition newsletter.
[vc_row css=”.vc_custom_1511194020685{background-color: #f1f1f1 !important;}”][vc_column][vc_column_text]Dicamba damage that has become an increasing problem nationwide. EPA has reached an agreement with Monsanto, BASF and DuPont on measures to further minimize the potential for drift to damage neighboring crops from the use of Dicamba formulations used to control weeds in genetically modified cotton and soybeans. New requirements for the use of Dicamba “over the top” (application to growing plants) will allow farmers to make informed choices for seed purchases for the 2018 growing season. Manufacturers have voluntarily agreed to label changes that impose additional requirements for “over the top” use of these products next year including, most significantly: (If you are short on space you can cut out all of this bulleted list except the information in the first bulleted point.)
For more information: https://www.epa.gov/ingredients-used-pesticide-products/registration-dicamba-use-genetically-engineered-crops[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row]
Grant Background
In early September 2017, eXtension received formal notification from the EPA of their acceptance of the grant application to establish and administer a national sub award program in support of pesticide applicator education and training for certified applicators of restricted use pesticides. eXtension Foundation was invited in early 2017 to apply for this grant by pesticide safety education coordinators and the National Pesticide Safety Education Center (NPSEC). The goal of the newly-formed NPSEC is to support Extension Pesticide Safety Education Program (PSEP) educators.
The NPSEC seeks to strengthen the national system of university extension PSEPs by improving the quality, consistency, and accessibility of educational offerings, promoting collaboration and leveraging of educational resources and learning assessment tools, and increasing revenue generation of Extension programs. The eXtension Foundation currently provides contractual services to NPSEC to deliver online programs and temporarily serves as the Center’s fiduciary service provider. NPSEC and eXtension are partners in the grant deliverables and implementation.
Grant is in Start-Up Phase
The startup phase of this grant is in progress and because of changes in EPA requirements, the process will be different than in the past. Tom Smith, Director of the NPSEC and Beverly Coberly, eXtension Chief Operating Officer, will co-chair an advisory committee and lead this effort. Things to look for as this grant is rolled out are:
Projected Timelines
Projected timelines are:
What Can Directors Do?