Joint Press Release – Australian Ground Sprayers Association and GPA Training

4 November 2024

In response to the current review of spray drift in South Australia, the Australian Ground Sprayers Association and GPA Training welcome the review being conducted by Hydra Consulting. The two groups have been collaborating on bringing the Australian Ground Sprayers training program SprayPass to the Australian grains sector, to improve performance in mitigating spray drift and reducing the effect the grains industry has on industries like the wine industry and the wider community.

Andrew Kennedy from AGA said “SprayPass has been developed by our association to improve the knowledge of spray operators, to help limit agricultural chemicals leaving the target paddock. By industry working collaboratively we believe we can significantly improve outcomes with a national training system for boomspray operators.

The SprayPass course has been developed for professional spray contractors by Australian Ground Sprayers Association. By widening the target users to include grain farm operations, SprayPass can give industry the opportunity to demonstrate good stewardship regarding agricultural chemical applications.

The industry has never been under as much pressure to demonstrate best practice. We have recently undertaken a course content review and if SprayPass was picked up as a national training standard by the grains sector we will beef up training content dealing with weather conditions and more particularly, identifying hazardous inversions”

Paul Daniel from GPA Training said “Online training has significantly scaled what can be achieved in a short period of time at low cost to the industry. We collaborated on delivering the supporting training for Z50 mouse bait to meet APVMA requirements and have seen the opportunity to collaborate with AGA on spray drift training and compliance.

Our proprietary platform, Stage IQ, can deliver a variety of learning styles from video, assessment, quiz, and traditional click and reveal learning – all while delivering data management, automation and evidence of learning for spray operators.

There could be up to 10,000 people in SA operating boomsprays, and the logical way to deliver relevant training is online and controlled by industry, as industry-based training.

As a grain grower myself, a minimum standard to operate a boomspray in South Australia should include knowledge about appropriate weather conditions, knowledge about current spray equipment and access to technology in the cabin to recognise hazardous inversions.

There have been three groups delivering high quality face to face spray seminars around SA this year with high quality speakers. We would like to work collaboratively with industry to deliver that training more widely and provide evidence of training”.

AGA and GPA Training look forward to the findings and opportunities for improvement that may be identified by the current review being undertaken by Hydra Consulting, when released for wider industry engagement.

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