Counterfeit and falsified pesticides can deprive farmers of more than half of the crop, and this can happen a year or more after their use, since it is not known what impurities these drugs contain, how long they will remain in the soil and how they will affect subsequent crop rotation, experts warn. company "August". Low-quality raw materials, non-compliance with production technologies and an unexplored composition of such drugs also pose a threat to the environment and human health.
Counterfeit and counterfeit products remain an acute problem for the pesticide industry: according to the Russian Union of Producers of Chemical Plant Protection Products, in some regions the market share of such pesticides reaches 30%. Counterfeit goods include goods, in the manufacture and packaging of which intellectual property was illegally used - for example, someone else's trademark or image was applied, confusingly similar to it, patent rights were violated, etc. In addition, counterfeit products include products that do not have the marking required by law. Counterfeit is a product released with violations of production technology, the quality of which differs from the declared characteristics.
The main factor that motivates farmers to purchase dubious pesticides is the reduced price in comparison with quality products. In order to make a profit, counterfeit manufacturers use cheap ingredients of poor quality and low purity, and their ratio remains on the conscience of the seller. However, like the entire composition of the drug.
Due to the high biological activity of pesticides, even minimal changes in the composition of plant protection products can lead to a significant increase in their toxicity. The active substances in counterfeit and falsified products may turn out to be completely different from those in the original preparation (up to their complete absence, which can leave fields unprotected and farmers without a crop). The unstudied composition of such products poses a threat to the environment, human health, as well as to agricultural crops, both in the current season and for subsequent crops of the crop rotation.
A typical example of the consequences of the use of low-quality pesticides is given by Dmitry Belov, head of the product development department of Firm Avgust JSC: “In 2019, an agricultural holding from the Rostov region contacted our company: they faced poor germination of peas and chickpeas. In some places the plants did not emerge at all, and mustard blossomed with great delay and reluctantly. As it turned out, a year ago, winter crops were sown in the same areas as part of a crop rotation. They were treated with herbicides against dicotyledonous weeds - shchiritsa, white mari, bindweed, thistle, etc. A small part of the area was then treated with our preparations, the rest - with two preparations from a supplier who imports ready-made pesticide formulations from China. In their composition, such active substances as tribenuron-methyl and thifensulfuron-methyl were declared. When the drone was raised, it became clear: the area of legumes and crucifers, where the Augusta herbicides were used, did not suffer, but the rest of the crops was largely depressed. "
The company's specialists had doubts about the purity of the pesticides supplied by the seller, and when examining their samples, quantitative and qualitative analysis methods showed that in addition to the two indicated active substances, these drugs contain a significant amount of impurities - in particular, metsulfuron-methyl, chlorosulfuron, triflusulfuron-methyl , picloram, etc. These active ingredients are characterized by aftereffect on crops such as mustard, rapeseed, peas, chickpeas.
“Most likely, these drugs were contaminated as a result of their production on a production line that previously produced herbicides for sugar beets, soybeans and non-agricultural use,” explains Dmitry Belov. - The active ingredients can contaminate the equipment used to formulate the drug (reactor, mill, pipelines). To get rid of them, thorough flushing is required with production stoppages for up to a week. The best option is to have multiple production lines. If you do not carry out flushing, you can significantly reduce the cost of the production process, but there is a danger of contamination - contamination of the manufactured product with residues from the previous formulation. "
As a result, the "nuclear" mixture of strong herbicides coped well with weeds on winter crops, but the aftereffect of impurities made it impossible to harvest subsequent crops of the crop rotation. Moreover, even in the smallest concentrations, impurities can have a negative effect: for example, common herbicides based on sulfonylureas are used to control weeds at only three to five grams per hectare (based on the active ingredient).
In order to protect its products from counterfeiting, the company "August" introduced its serial marking in accordance with the system of international standards GS1. Marking enables product traceability from shipment to use and makes it difficult to counterfeit. For smartphones, a special application has been created that allows you to check the authenticity of each package - "August Checker". To do this, you need to scan the DM-code on the drug canister or bottle.