Fertilizer uncontrolled, counterfeiting rampant

Fertilizer is now under the control of three powerful ministries, but oversight is so loose that counterfeit fertilizer is now flooding the market.

According to the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, there are 500 enterprises producing and trading 5000 fertilizer products.

Nearly 50 percent are low quality

Agriculture experts observe that farmers must buy fertilizer, accounting for 30-50 percent of total production costs to increase productivity by 35-45 percent. Many farmers complain that they have been swindled, unknowingly buying low quality fertilizer, which has badly affected the production.

Management agencies in 31 southern cities and provinces decided to examine fertilizer products to determine the actual quality. A report released at the conference on reviewing fertilizer products showed that 419 out of 859 samples (48.78 percent) have been found as low quality.

The low quality fertilizer samples had too-low nutrition content. Many samples had nutrient contents just equal to 40-50 percent of advertised levels.

In Lam Dong province, management agencies took 195 samples and 97 were found to be of low quality. In Long An province, 89 out of 136 samples did not meet standards. The figures are 31/70 in Ben Tre, 22/47 in An Giang, 26/58 in Tra Vinh and 21/40 in Binh Phuoc province.

Nguyen Van Hinh, Chief Inspector of An Giang Department Agriculture and Rural Development, observed that many companies imported low quality fertilizer products to sell on the domestic market and would run away when the products were discovered.

In Ben Tre province, many low quality fertilizers were discovered, but management agencies cannot find the producers, because the manufacturers’ names and addresses on the packaging were “bogus”.

Loose controls

Low quality fertilizer producers and traders can exist because punishments are not severe enough to deter them. Many traders pay fines and continue making counterfeit products.

Some believe that low quality fertilizer products should be considered as a counterfeit product, and so traders must be punished for counterfeiting. Many have suggested that government agencies must stipulate when low quality products can be considered as counterfeit (how low the nutrition content is).

Pham Hoai An, Deputy Director of the Hau Giang Department of Agriculture and Rural Development, remarked that there are too many ministries and branches involved in the control of fertilizer production and trade, so oversight is not close. The Ministry of Industry and Trade controls production and trade of inorganic fertilizers, while the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development is in charge of organic products, and the Ministry of Science and Technology is in charge of product quality and technology transfer.

Tien phong

Tags: Vietnam fertiliser