Given fertilizer’s relatively low value and difficulty in handling, it is almost alarming to think that this product is a prime target for counterfeiters. Unfortunately, as in many other cases, there appear to be no boundaries to the items counterfeited, and the impact cannot be underestimated.

 

Fake fertilizer is prevalent in African countries, Indonesia, India, Vietnam and Turkey, to name a few. The Vietnam Fertilizer Association estimates that substandard fertilizer costs the country’s economy $2 billion per year. In addition, 1,000 metric tons are seized annually for quality violations.¹ In Uganda, a blind test revealed that urea on sale to farmers contained 33% less nitrogen than advertised,² and in Tanzania, an estimated 40% of fertilizers are believed to be fakes.³ Added to this is the illegal use of fertilizer in the diversion of high nitrates to manufacture explosive devices, which adds another dimension to the severity of the problem.
 

Moreover, without appropriate restoration of the organic and mineral content of depleted soils, farmers often clear new land, contributing to the global deforestation problem. By improving the quality of arable land, farmers can turn less to deforestation, which represents as much as 30% of global greenhouse emissions. Africa, with a huge agricultural potential, uses less than 15kg of fertilizer per hectare, only a tenth of the global average. As a result, 75% of African soils are degraded, costing the continent $4 billion per year.⁴ The FAO (Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations) forecasts the global fertilizer demand will be 202 million metric tons in 2020.⁵

 

To put the value of good fertilizer in perspective, during a recent in-field DNA testing of the fertilizer supply chain for a large batch of molecular-tagged granular fertilizer, I witnessed firsthand the importance of good fertilizer to Ghanaians. With about 3 kg (6 lbs) of spare fertilizer left from our testing, I asked a waiter at our hotel if he knew anyone who could make use of it. His response was akin to someone being offered an ingot of gold; as it transpired, the waiter also was a farmer with a small holding and he would not normally be able to afford fertilizer.

 

Consequences of counterfeit/adulterated fertilizer
There are many ways in which fertilizer is adulterated, ranging from diluting good fertilizer by mixing in ‘fillers’ that often contain harmful ingredients, to substituting expensive high-quality fertilizer for a different type. There are also many examples where the fertilizer bags themselves have been copied using well-known manufacturers’ names and logos to create counterfeit fertilizer.

 

Some of the agricultural and economic impacts of adulterated fertilizer are:

The molecular tagging of fertilizer to stop adulteration can be used to solve all of the issues listed above. Additional benefits include environmental protection, sustainability and full traceability and transparency of the supply chain.

 

Fertilizer can be adulterated at any step in a complex supply chain. Fertilizer is produced in various physical types, but main categories are granular, liquid, powder and suspension.  Our field-testing has been concentrated on applying a molecular tag to granular fertilizer.

 

During the granulation process, a coating is applied to the granules for various benefits and this step is optimal for molecular tagging. Below are the core building blocks for Applied DNA’s CertainT platform used to combat fertilizer adulation.

The same technology is being deployed in several other industries such as textiles, where more than 200 million pounds of cotton has been tagged during the ginning process providing traceability from “dirt to shirt.”