Brazil - 20 companies receive functionality certification for agricultural adjuvants

The Official Seal of Functionality for Agricultural Adjuvants from the Agronomic Institute (IAC), announced at the end of last year, was adhered to by more than 14 manufacturers.

These companies join the six companies that have already obtained certification at the end of 2021: Agrocete, Apex Agro, Equilex Chemicals, Momentive Performance Materials, Thera Química and Vittia.

The management of the ″Pulverization Adjuvants″ program, responsible for granting the seal, celebrated the rapid increase in the number of companies interested in certification.

According to the program coordinator, researcher Hamilton Ramos, the seal ensures the functionality of agricultural adjuvants.

The seal is awarded only to companies that have products approved in evaluations carried out by specialists from the Center for Engineering and Automation (CEA), of the IAC. The agency, from the Department of Agriculture and Supply of SP, is located in the city of Jundiaí.

Ramos also explained that agricultural adjuvants are products added to the agrochemical mixture before applying the latter to crops to improve the effectiveness of treatments and reduce losses in spraying.

″Unlike agricultural pesticides or agrochemicals, adjuvants do not require official registration in Brazil. This regulatory loophole poses risks regarding the quality of the adjuvants sold to farmers,″ Ramos said.

″A poor quality adjuvant, associated with an agricultural defensive with the latest technology, causes losses related to the farmer's investments to control pests, diseases, and weeds,″ he added.

The researcher also pointed out that it takes at least six months of studies from the entry of the request in the Functionality Seal by the companies until the conclusion of reports.

″The main goal of the 'Spraying Adjuvants' program is to develop norms that support a single official certification system for these products,″ the researcher stressed.

″The Seal of Functionality is an important part of this process,″ he said in conclusion.

The ″Spraying Adjuvants″ program, created 16 years ago, is financed with private resources and unites companies from the agricultural sector to CEA-IAC.

(Editing by Leonardo Gottems, reporter for AgroPages)