The Centre will soon announce guidelines to regulate the Rs 1,500 crore biostimulants’ market that promise farmers high yields & quality along with other benefits from the use of various compounds & micro organisms.
Officials said that unlike pesticides and fertilizers, these products are not regulated and they are sold without a certification of their efficacy. The Centre will set up a regulatory body for such products, officials informed.
A senior agriculture ministry official said, “Framing of rules is in the final stages. According to the proposed guidelines, biostimulants will have to be first registered with the government and will have to prove efficacy before hitting in the market. Also proper labelling will have to be done like name of manufacturers, ingredients & expiry date”.
The official said that the need for a regulatory body has come out as many companies have begun manufacturing biostimulants without any authentic formulation.
He said, “Farmers are being cheated as there is no authority to confirm the efficacy of the growth stimulants. Hence the regulatory body will make sure farmers get genuine products that help in improving yield per hectare”.
It must be noted that the biostimulant industry is very unorganised with small players crowding the space. With growing demand for organic food products, the demand for organic farming will also increase that in turn will boost demand for the biostimulants.
He said, “Once the industry gets regulated then all non-descript players will disappear and only those with authentic formulations would remain in the market. No biostimulant will have any pesticides beyond a permissible limit of 0.01ppm”.
