Strictly handle fertilizer production facilities that violate quality standards.

(Baonghean) - Poor quality fertilizers are still being smuggled into the market, while many fertilizer production facilities have not met the required conditions. The current situation of fertilizer production is posing many challenges for functional sectors in management.

8 poor quality fertilizer samples

The fertilizer market is becoming increasingly complicated as many quality violations have been discovered by authorities recently.

Most recently, the province's interdisciplinary inspection team inspected 21 fertilizer production and trading establishments in the province, including products produced in the province and products of production establishments outside the province such as Hanoi, Long An, Ninh Binh, Lao Cai, Thanh Hoa.

The delegation took 24 fertilizer samples for quality testing. The results showed that the quality of the mixed fertilizer products of a production facility in the province did not meet the announced standards and quality indicators as prescribed. In addition, 7 fertilizer samples from 6 business establishments did not meet the announced standards.

The provincial interdisciplinary inspection team inspected the fertilizer production activities of Nghe An Agricultural Materials Joint Stock Corporation.

Mr. Nguyen Manh Ha, Chief Inspector of the Department of Science and Technology, said: The fertilizer samples that the team took for testing were random and tested at designated, reputable testing laboratories. Therefore, the results were accurate and objective. After the testing results were available, the interdisciplinary inspection team imposed administrative penalties on 6 business establishments according to Decree 80/2013 of the Government with a total fine of 15.55 million VND. For the production facility, the Department of Science and Technology transferred the case file to the Provincial People's Committee to fine the violating enterprise 160 million VND.

Ms. Nguyen Thi H., one of the sugarcane growing families in Nghia Lam commune, Nghia Dan, complained about the quality of fertilizer affecting the growth of sugarcane.

Previously, in 2013, the authorities caught many cases of counterfeit fertilizers imitating reputable brands. For example, on August 4, 2013, the anti-smuggling team (PC46), Nghe An Police raided the house of Le Thi Huong (residing in Cho Vinh hamlet, Thai Son commune, Do Luong district) and caught Huong red-handed loading 232 bags of counterfeit fertilizer (25kg/bag) bearing the NPK 8-10-3 brand of Viet My Fertilizer Company onto a car to be transported to Que Phong district for sale. Checking the warehouse of the suspect, the police seized an additional 5,755 bags printed with the NPK 8-10-3 brand of Viet My Fertilizer Company.

According to Mr. Nguyen Tung Son, Head of the Mobile Team (Market Management Department), through inspection, the quality of some fertilizer products was found to be not up to standard. The most worrying thing is that businesses are opportunistic and units from outside the area are trading in poor quality fertilizers to sell to people.

No manufacturing license yet

Since February 1, 2014, Decree 202/2014 of the Government took effect, the fertilizer sector has been separated in management. Specifically, the industry and trade sector manages inorganic fertilizers, while the agriculture sector manages organic fertilizers and other fertilizers. However, since taking over from the agriculture sector, the state management of fertilizers by the industry and trade sector has been very confusing.

The inspection team took fertilizer samples from the Fertilizer Production and Agricultural Services Factory (Nghe An 1/5 One Member Co., Ltd.).

Mr. Le Duc Anh, Head of the Department of Environmental Safety and Technology (Department of Industry and Trade) said: After receiving from the agricultural sector, the Department of Industry and Trade is in the process of building a legal corridor to require businesses to implement. Because everything is new, for the management work to become regular, it will take at least until 2016 to be substantial.

Currently, there are about 12 inorganic fertilizer production units and about 430 fertilizer trading units in the province. According to initial records, most fertilizer production facilities in the province are small-scale, using semi-automatic mixing technology using both machines and shovels. In terms of production capacity, most are low, from 5 - 10,000 tons/year. Only a few enterprises have a production capacity of over 50,000 tons/year such as Nghe An Agricultural Materials Corporation and Vinh Chemical Joint Stock Company.

In order for the facilities to operate in accordance with regulations, the Department of Industry and Trade has advised the Provincial People's Committee to issue Decision 31/2015 on fertilizer quality management in the province. At the same time, it has guided the facilities to prepare documents to send to the Ministry of Industry and Trade to obtain a fertilizer production license.

If by February 2016, any facility does not have a license, the Department will impose a fine according to regulations. Up to now, according to records, no facility in the province has been granted a license to produce fertilizer. In addition, only 9/12 fertilizer production facilities have declared compliance.

To have a basis for verification, the delegation went to people's homes to collect fertilizer samples.

The most difficult problem in fertilizer quality management is sampling for testing. Currently, there is no designated or registered testing laboratory in the province, and there is a lack of technical staff, facilities, and equipment, so quality assessment is not an easy problem. Meanwhile, the high cost of assessment and long time period affect the effectiveness of the handling because when the results are available, the violating facility has already sold all of them to farmers, unintentionally creating conditions for fake and poor quality fertilizers to circulate on the market.

Therefore, the fertilizer quality management agency needs to take measures to require units and enterprises to regularly send samples for quality testing according to fertilizer batches, and at the same time strictly handle establishments that violate quality control regulations in production. Because fertilizer is a special type of commodity, once used for fertilizing crops, it cannot be recovered, so when farmers buy fake, poor quality fertilizers and use them and suffer losses, the quality cannot be assessed as a basis for handling.

Nguyen Hung