China Hunan Department of Agriculture promulgated two local laws regarding pesticide management, the “blacklist management system on pesticide” and the “inspection system on pesticide”. As a major agricultural and agrochemical consumption province in China, Hunan is to strengthening its supervision on the crop protection market by increasing and routinizing its inspection upon the agrochemical producers and distributors.
If a pesticide producer or distributor was seized of illegal operating of banned pesticide or counterfeit pesticide, or twice investigated of disqualified pesticide goods in recent two years, or causes significant damage to agriculture led by quality problem of their pesticide goods, it will be blacklisted and received more frequent inspections and spot check than other operators. Furthermore, the listed distributors are not allowed selling the high toxic pesticide goods to the consumers and will not be invited by the government for public procurement on agrochemicals. The listed operators would be deleted from the list if no violation has been found in next two years.
The province is to standardize its inspections on pesticide goods as well. The “inspection system” has prescribed the conducting authorities and frequency. Generally, the province shall conduct one or two inspection annually, the city authorities will inspect the market quarterly, and the county can inspect their district at any time. The pesticide producers will be examined about their manufacturing licenses, registration certifications, lot numbers, and sample tested of their pesticide goods. The distributor will be inspected of false advertisement or trademark infringement, and whether the distributors have keep record of their sources, storages and sales of the products.
Downstream users are included in the inspection as well. They will be checked up whether the pesticides were correctly and proper sprayed and the crops were picked according to the pre- harvest interval.
