'Fake' fertilizers sold amid scant supplies

'Fake' fertilizers sold amid scant supplies

JAKARTA (JP): Scant supplies of fertilizer have led to an
upsurge in the sales of "fake" fertilizers to rice farmers across
the country.

The provincial administration of East Kalimantan found at
least eight tons of substandard SP-36 fertilizer, normally used
for rice and food crops, being sold in a market, Antara reported.

"Laboratory results from PT Sucofindo in Samarinda showed that
the SP-36 fertilizer sold here was substandard; its phosphate
content was insufficient," the East Kalimantan administration's
spokesman, Haritsah Ratman, said in the provincial capital of
Samarinda.

Haritsah said the substandard fertilizers were produced by CV
Manunggal Agrotani in Surabaya, East Java, and were distributed
by UD Gunung Kombeng and PT Sanjaya Lestari in Samarinda.

Haritsah said that samples of the fertilizers were brought to
PT Sucofindo in Jakarta for further tests in order to verify the
accuracy of the first tests.

If results of the second test prove that the companies were
involved in the sale of substandard fertilizers, they would be
held liable, he said.

In Pekanbaru, Riau, the head of the provincial office of the
Industry and Trade Ministry, Susanto, said that his office would
form a team to monitor the distribution of fertilizers in the
province.

Susanto said his office would cooperate with Riau's branch of
the state fertilizer company, PT Pupuk Sriwijaya (Pusri), to set
up the team.

However, he admitted that the authorities had yet to find
"fake" fertilizers being sold in the market.

"What we have found, instead, are fertilizers with chemical
contents that were less than the standard. For example, if urea
is supposed to have a 10 percent chemical content, we find urea
with only a 7 to 8 percent content," he was quoted by Antara as
saying.

The government lifted subsidies and trade restrictions on
fertilizers earlier this month.

In the past, subsidized fertilizers, which were supposed to be
allocated for rice farmers only, were also sold to plantation
firms, creating a scarcity in fertilizer supplies for the
farmers.

Pusri's officials

Soleh had earlier pointed the finger at Pusri's officials for
colluding with village cooperatives to profit from the wide
disparity between the subsidized prices and the market prices of
fertilizers by selling large amounts of subsidized fertilizers to
major plantation firms.

But even after the subsidies and trade restriction were
lifted, supplies remained low while prices soared.

High fertilizer prices led to a riot in Central Java, where a
number of people were injured and dozens of shops and vehicles
were damaged.

Agriculture Minister Soleh Solahuddin said at a press briefing
on Monday that Pusri had distributed 130 percent more fertilizer
than it was supposed to since the removal of subsidies.

Soleh admitted, however, that fertilizer supplies were still
scare in mid-December, even in South Sumatra where Pusri's
headquarter is located.

He implied that many distributors still sold fertilizers to
plantation firms at higher prices rather then selling the
fertilizers to rice farmers. (das)