Crackdown urged on low-grade fertilisers

The Ministry of Industry and Trade (MoIT) has asked local authorities and relevant agencies to strengthen the management of fertiliser products to prevent the purchase and use of fake and low quality products.
The Ministry of Industry and Trade (MoIT) has asked local authoritiesand relevant agencies to strengthen the management of fertiliserproducts to prevent the purchase and use of fake and low qualityproducts.

The Tin Tuc (News) newspaper reports that the ministry has asked localmanagement agencies to conform to the Government's chemical industrydevelopment plan to 2010 with a vision to 2020.

Local agencies should strengthen investment in existing fertiliserplants and refrain from permitting NPK (nitrogen, phosphorous andpotassium) fertiliser plants using outdated technologies, the reportcites the ministry as saying.

Inspection agenciesshould focus on monitoring small-scale fertiliser producers whosefacilities are not conducive to producing quality fertilisers as peroriginal registration, it said.

Phung Ha, head ofthe ministry's Department of Chemicals, said the involvement of too manyagencies has created management overlaps in the industry and resultedin several adverse impacts on the environment, the farmers and localproducers.

Ha said ministries and sectors should perfect legal issues relating to the management of fertiliser production and trade.

Under current regulations, the Ministry of Agriculture and RuralDevelopment (MARD) is responsible for managing organic fertilisers,including setting up plans for production and use, inspecting violationsin fertiliser production and use, and working with other ministries andsectors to research and apply advanced technologies for organicfertiliser production.

Meanwhile, the MoIT is incharge of managing inorganic fertiliser production. The ministry hassaid it has an interdisciplinary team inspect inorganic fertiliserproducers every year. Local market management agencies also work withcompetent agencies to regularly inspect fertiliser products.

Inspectors have found that most violations are related to tradingregistration, labels, quality, expiry dates and fake products.

The inspection results have also found that about 50 percent ofinspected samples of NPK fertiliser failed to meet quality standards setby MARD.

Vietnam needs about 8.8-9 million tonnes of all kinds of fertilisers for farming this year, according to MoIT estimates.

Of this, local producers can only supply about 5.6 million tonnes. The rest has to be imported.

China is currently the largest fertiliser supplier, accounting formore than 40 percent of Vietnam's total fertiliser import value./.

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