Allegations about pesticide quality are not new. Low-quality pesticides are imported and marketed, products are sold after their registration has expired, and adulteration comes to light regularly.

This time the allegation is more serious: that pesticides have been marketed for a long time under forged registrations. The accusation against one company has raised questions about how well pesticide registration and market monitoring work.

General Agro Chemical Limited has reportedly been marketing more than half a dozen pesticides for nearly a decade without any registration for them, selling the products by showing fake registrations.

The products allegedly marketed this way are sold under the brand names Jenida Plus 2.5 EC, Geoban 55 EC, Panacea 5 SG, Dizim 50 WP, Rain 48 EC, Genephos 56 TB and Gene-Panda 33 EC.

When a pesticide is registered, it is given a registration and marketing approval number (AP). The AP numbers General Agro uses on its products are not its own and are being used fraudulently, according to the allegations. It is also alleged that the products were never approved by the Pesticide Technical Advisory Committee (PTAC) or its sub-committee.

The Plant Protection Wing of the Department of Agricultural Extension (DAE) issues and renews licences for each brand name, but the final recommendation for approval comes from PTAC. The company is alleged to have forged certificates, including by using the AP number of another company that has closed.

Denying the allegations, General Agro Chemical Limited managing director Jahangir Hossain told Jagonews: "If all our papers were not in order, we could not have been in business for so long. Someone is spreading misleading information for their own interest, to harm my company."

When asked to show valid approval documents, however, he refused.

DAE sources said pesticide registration was once done manually but is now done online, which is why frauds of this kind have started to come to light.

No DAE official would speak on the record. A senior official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the company had been doing this cleverly for a long time, evading the agriculture department's oversight. "We will take action on this," he said.

Large amounts of low-quality pesticide have recently been caught through monitoring by agriculture officials, and sales of adulterated pesticide keep rising. The department concerned has ordered more than a dozen pesticides withdrawn from the market for this offence.

Source: Jagonews24. First published in Bengali on The Agro News.