'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)