BACKGROUND: While pesticides are essential for crop protection and food security, they pose serious risks to human health and the environment. Agro-input dealers can play an important role in mitigating pesticide risks, given that they are a major source of pesticides and plant health information for many developing-country farmers. In this article, we assess the willingness of agro-input dealers to offer integrated pest management-based advisory services and promote pesticide risk reduction through a voluntary certification scheme. RESULTS: Using survey data from 557 agro-input dealers in Uganda and a discrete choice experiment, we find that the pro-posed certification scheme is significantly valued by agro-input dealers, particularly for its potential to provide training opportunities and ensure safety to human health and the environment. Agro-input dealers have a positive attitude towards a certification scheme that restricts the sale of high-risk pesticide products, especially if it stimulates additionalincome-generating opportunities. Further analysis shows that preferences for voluntary certification attributes are influ-enced by certification experience, agro-dealership experience, business ownership status and incidence of acute pesticidepoisoning. CONCLUSION: The study findings demonstrate that agro-input dealers are conscious of pesticide risks to human and environ-mental health and are keen to participate in a certification scheme promoting safer plant protection products.© 2024 The Author(s). Pest Management Science published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd on behalf of Society of Chemical Industry.