2024 Agricultural Materials Integrated Quality Management Plan
The government has decided to strengthen quality inspections and crackdowns to prevent the distribution of substandard and illegal agricultural materials such as pesticides and fertilizers.
The National Agricultural Products Quality Management Service announced the "2024 Integrated Quality Management Plan for Agricultural Materials" containing these measures on the 29th.
First, pesticides that were found non-compliant in the previous year will be collected for quality inspection. In addition, the plan includes promoting and guiding through honorary pesticide inspectors, and inducing voluntary management by sellers through a pre-notification system for distribution inspections. Joint inspections with local governments will also be strengthened from once to twice a year to intensify crackdowns on sellers regarding banned pesticides, compliance with pesticide efficacy guarantee periods, price labeling, and sales information recording.
For fertilizers, quality inspections will be strengthened from the production stage to prevent the distribution of substandard fertilizers such as those failing to meet guaranteed component standards. In particular, quality inspections will be enhanced not only for organic fertilizers but also for inorganic fertilizers. At the distribution stage, inspections will focus on trace element compound fertilizers and type 4 compound fertilizers, which have a high rate of quality inspection non-compliance.
To prevent damage to eco-friendly farms caused by intentional mixing of pesticides in organic agricultural materials, surveillance will be intensified at the production and distribution stages to block the intentional mixing of additional pesticide components beyond the existing managed pesticide components (463 components) in circulation. To this end, analytical methods will be established in the first half of the year, and related notifications will be revised so that from the second half, management will be strengthened by verifying the suitability of imported raw materials to enhance the reliability of raw materials.
Customized management will also be implemented according to distribution channels. For sellers, guidance will be provided through honorary inspectors, followed by inspections conducted by employees of the National Agricultural Products Quality Management Service. In online distribution networks, shopping mall tenants that act as agents for pesticide sales will be continuously monitored, and violators will be reported. Requests will also be made to each portal to prohibit keyword searches related to illegal domestic and international distribution of agricultural materials. Furthermore, to block illegal inflow of overseas agricultural materials through ports, promotional efforts such as installing bulletin boards at ports will be strengthened.
Park Sung-woo, Director of the National Agricultural Products Quality Management Service, said, "To enhance trust in agricultural materials and produce high-quality, safe agricultural products that consumers can trust, the National Agricultural Products Quality Management Service will continue to make efforts to block the distribution of substandard agricultural materials."
© The Asia Business Daily(www.asiae.co.kr). All rights reserved.
