Ebonyi government says adulteration of the state manufactured fertilizer has become a serious problems to its management and consequently, inaugurated 8-man taskforce to fight the act.
Chukwu who is also the General Manager of Ebonyi Fertilizer and Chemical Company Limited, said the taskforce would operation against the act by fishing out the perpetrators, noting that some cases of those caught last year are still in the law court.
"They will go out just like they did last year, some of the cases are still in Court but one of the problems we have in Nigerian Judiciary, the law system is very slow but I have adopted my own method as far as it doesn't mean we are trampling on anybody's legal right," he said.
He further stated, "if we have now discovered you adulterated fertilizer, we won't sell to you; yes we can tell you 'go with your money, we won't sell to you and you can go to other fertilizer blending plants to buy and being to Ebonyi, you can't sell in Ebonyi; we will use the force of Government on you. You can't sell because you won't tell us you did not adulterate it. So that is one of the measures because that is one of the greatest problems we have today in Nigeria - adulteration of fertilizer which can come in different forms."
He added: "When we talk about adulteration, you think adulteration is just that they are using wrong raw material(s), no, the greatest form of adulteration first and foremost is underweight, underweighing the bag is the worst form that can also affect the crops.
"For Instance now, if you have one hectare of rice farm, you are supposed to apply 4 bags of NPK 20:10:10 on it, you do topdressing with 2 bags of Urea, that's the standard for the crop to do very well.
"Now, a bag of fertilizer is 50kg multiplied by 4, a hectare should receive 200kg, if you underweigh to, let's say 45kg, you are giving 180kg to the same size of farm. The crops will not get what they want because the crops will not talk but they will talk one day during harvest, you will know they are outspoken because they will not do well, you will have a poor yield. That is a form of adulteration, underweighing.
"Another form is 'tinkering with the recipe.' If I'm doing NPK 20:10:10, the recipe is different from that of 15:15:15. For instance, if I'm doing 20:10:10, a bag of it should contain 21%DAP, 16%MOP, 36%Urea and 27%Limestone Granules. Now, if I tamper with them, especially the most active ingredients: DAP, MOP and Urea by reducing the quantity and increase that of the Limestone Granules, Limestone does not do much in fertilizer production and that's why we call it 'filler'(it's just to occupy space) but it's very important because it acts as a base to reduce the acidity of the soil because by using inorganic fertilizer, you are increasing the soil acidity and most crops do not tolerate acidic soil so, that's why we use base which is essentially Calcium carbonate(chalk). So the main function is to reduce the acidity of the soil and it is the cheapest of all the raw materials. If you just go and make it 60% and do the other ones just to make your 100%, it is still fertilizer but you have changed the recipe. It is still adulteration which is always very dangerous for crops because they will not even do well.
"Another form of adulteration is you take a bag of NPK 20:10:10 from us, you go out there take a bag of 27:13:13 and pour it into it and seal it back and sell it as NPK 27:13:13 - very dangerous to farmers and to crops because when you use it to farm rice, you are not to do topdressing with Urea.
"Because fertilizer is very costly this year does not mean I will adulterate, I can make it more costly and prepare to increase price here better than to adulterate and that's why I told Agro-Dealers "you can never get adulteration to come from here." It's from them, we know some of them, some have been identified already.
"Some of them do it in their house because they have stiching machines there but when we start, if you don't have a warehouse, you will not sell.
"I have blacklisted one this year based on the information I got, he cannot buy here and I told him that I didn't mention his name when we met on Tuesday. I said it clearly, if you have been identified, forget it, we will not sell to you and you will not sell in Ebonyi. If you bring from another place, you will not sell in Ebonyi because there is no guarantee if you adulterate.
"A lot of criminalities done by Agro-Dealers. It's Agro-Dealers that are doing this thing.
"It is very very rare for a Blending Plant to adulterate; very very rare, you know why? You will not know when they come because here we are policed by the Federal Government, there are Collateral Managers also working with us.
"Now let's assume you compromise Collateral Manager, you cannot compromise Federal Government because you don't know when the agents will come in. They will just drive in and say we want to check the samples of your products, they use the cone to collect the samples, put it in a plastic bottle and move straight to Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria for analysis. If they analyze it and it's not in conformity with what it supposed to be (the active ingredients), it's adulteration.
"So, what we do is pick from the same bag after them and go to University of Nigeria, Nsukka for our own analysis so that we can compare notes and to tell you the fact, since 2017, they have never at any time called us and say so so batch of your product failed quality test. So most of the blending plants are afraid of that.
"Because fertilizer is very costly this year does not mean I will adulterate, I can make it more costly and prepare to increase price here better than to adulterate and that's why I told Agro-Dealers "you can never get adulteration to come from here." It's from them, we know some of them, some have been identified already. I have blacklisted one this year based on the information I got, he cannot buy here and I told him that I didn't mention his name when we met on Tuesday. I said it clearly, if you have been identified, forget it, we will not sell to you and you will not sell in Ebonyi. If you bring from another place, you will not sell in Ebonyi because there is no guarantee if you adulterate.
"Some of them do it in their house because they have stiching machines there but when we start, if you don't have a warehouse, you will not sell."
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