On Dec 20, 2019, the Chinese Ministry of Agricultural and Rural Affairs release the result of national supervisor and spot inspection on fertilizer during the second half of the year. The overall qualification rate was 86.9% but the qualification rate of organic fertilizer was less than 80%, mainly due to disqualified water content, organic matter content and excesive microbial contaminants.
The Ministry arranged 8 inspection centers and sampled 1193 tons of 336 bulk blending fertilizers, organic fertilizers and microbial fertilizers from 269 producers in 29 provinces. The number of product sampled, qualification rate and main quality deficiencies are as follows:
Product Category | Number of samples | Qualification rate | Main deficiencies |
bulk blending fertilizers | 50 | 100% | / |
organic fertilizers | 124 | 79.8% | Excessive level of water content, acidity/alkalinity; Insufficient organic matter/total nutrient; Excessive Fecal coliform and heavy metal contaminants; |
microbial fertilizers | 162 | 88.3% | Inadequate effective microbial; Excessive Fecal coliform and other microbial contaminants; Excessive level of water content, acidity/alkalinity; |
Some organic fertilizers and microbial fertilizers are still with labeling mistakes:
Absence of compulsory information;
Labeling of prohibited content;
Incorrectly uses of product name font size and color;
MoARA warning that the substandard products identified will be prior sampled in the next inspection and would be rejected from registration renewal if they are still found to be substandard.
