Has the sales ban on chemical fertilizers and pesticides been implemented?

In recent months, a campaign called "CCTV: Prohibit the sale of fertilizers and pesticides! The rumor that "fertilizer will be miserable" is spreading everywhere. About 40-50 official WeChat accounts forwarded articles with this title (or similar titles), but this rumor spread more widely in other media. Let me analyze the source of this rumor.

The rumor is based on a CCTV report about "reducing drugs and losing weight"

This report of CCTV 7 introduces the so-called "green organic tea" planted by college students in Jinzhai County, Anhui Province. The main purpose of this report is to "reduce the use of pesticides and fertilizers". Among them, the "two substitutes" mentioned by the relevant persons of Jinzhai County Tea Bureau are "organic fertilizer instead of chemical fertilizer, and biophysical control instead of single chemical control". It is mentioned in the video that the Jinzhai County Tea Bureau completely prohibits the sale of chemical fertilizers and chemically synthesized pesticides in the tea area, but the relevant people only admit that it is:

Jinzhai County only implements "two substitutions" in the tea industry, and the "biological pesticides" used in it also belong to "pesticides". The author consulted the relevant websites and did not see a clear stipulation that "the sale of pesticides and fertilizers is prohibited".

The local regulations on pesticides and fertilizers in the tea industry in a large tea county are vague, so it cannot be said that "no fertilizers and no pesticides" have been implemented in a general way, nor can it represent the overall policy of the country.

Relevant policies

The Ministry of Agriculture issued the Action Plan for Zero Growth of Fertilizer Use in 2020 and the Action Plan for Zero Growth of Pesticide Use in 2020, which mentioned "zero growth of pesticides and fertilizers", but did not mention prohibiting the sale of pesticides.

The Ministry of Agriculture's "Thirteenth Five-Year Plan for Agricultural Science and Technology Development" mentioned that "to ensure that the main crops achieve zero growth in the use of chemical fertilizers and pesticides on the basis of stable production." None of these important documents mentioned the so-called sales ban.

The rumor of "banning the sale of pesticides and fertilizers" has a long history. Some rumourers use some local special policies (even some vague policies) to confuse the audience and have a negative impact on agricultural production. Under the current production conditions, pesticides and fertilizers are still one of the most important agricultural means of production, such as China, the United States, Japan and other countries.

Author: Zhou Houyi