The Azores are the first Portuguese region to deliver professional identification documents to farmers that undertook vocational training in the application of organic pharmaceuticals. The Regional Government provided the vocational training.
The certificates of Agricultural Vocational Training and of Licenses to Apply Pharmaceutical Products were given to the farmers by the Regional Secretary of Agriculture and Forestry in a ceremony that took place in the city of Ponta Delgada.
The Regional Secretary for Agriculture and Forestry, Noé Rodrigues, explained that with this initiative the Regional Government of the Azores aims to insure that farmers know how to manage, handle and apply such products.
He underlined the importance of vocational training in this area to the improvement of safety practices in the agricultural sector, which, according to him, will have positive consequences in the " safety of farmers, in the protection of the environment and in public health" as well as insuring "compliance with existing legislation that safeguards the quality of Azorean products." At the graduation ceremony, 14 trainees received their Diplomas whilst 64 received their Licenses.
The Regional Secretariat for Agriculture and Forestry has, since 2007, implemented vocational training policies in the agricultural sector so as to improve the professional and legal statutes of agricultural workers and farmers by providing vocational training in agricultural techniques, economic operations and sales and in the handling and management of pharmaceutical products.
Until the present time, 23 vocational training courses were offered, 330 trainees graduated and more than a thousand hours of vocational training provided.
Of these courses, 2 were for technicians, 12 for economic operators and 9 for applicators of pharmaceutical products. Farmers and service providers attended the vocational training course.