International training courses on inspection and calibration of pesticide application equipment. A European Commission Directorate General for Health and Food Safety initiative

Training and knowledge represents, whatever the activity is, one of the most important aspects affecting the process success. These aspects became mandatory for all the stakeholders involved in the management of pesticide since the publication of Sustainable Use Directive (SUD). Six years after, the Member States have got proper training and done a lot of work, although much more efforts have to be made in this subject (DG SANTE, 2014a). The Consumers, Health, Agriculture and Food Executive Agency (CHAFEA), under the Directorate General for Health and Food Safety (DG SANTE), launched in 2014 an official tender within the Better Training for Safer Food (BTSF) programme focused in the very specific subject of inspection and calibration of pesticide application equipment in professional way. Two years after, five three days training courses have been already arranged and 95 participants from 28 countries have been trained. The organization of the courses has been arranged by a consortium created by AINIA (Spain), UPC (Spain) and AETS (France) and the courses have been delivered at three of the most representative laboratories in Europe: Unit of Agricultural Machinery at Politechnic University of Catalonia (UPC), DiSAFA at University of Turin and Julius Kühn Institute in Germany. An overview of the information obtained before, during and after the training courses indicates that , in general, knowledge on technical aspects related with inspections and calibration differs among the MS responsible for implementation of SUD; differences among MS in expertise, organization of mandatory inspections, training activities, etc. are also evident. The practical activities which are part of the BTSF courses have been very well appreciated among the participants and, in general, close to 100% of the participants indicated that those kind of trainings are important to guarantee the implementation of SUD in the EU.