Maharashtra to permit co-marketing of pesticides

The Maharashtra Agriculture department has permitted manufacturers to market fertilisers and pesticides after entering into tie-ups or agreements with registered users and companies, top officials of the department said.

The state government wanted formulate a new policy for pesticide sales and stop the sale of non-standard and non-recommended pesticides in the state. Many a time, pesticides are produced by one company but the marketing is undertaken by another.

This arrangement in the trade parlance is called co-marketing. However, a number of violations were found in co-marketing ventures, therefore the rules for such sale were to be tightened.

 

The pesticides sold under co-marketing route needed to be property labelled with the name of the manufacturer and the marketing company properly displayed. Therefore, the state agriculture department had stopped this practice since the year 2017.

 

However, pesticide companies approached the high court on this issue and the matter was set aside by the court and was confirmed by the Supreme Court, senior officials revealed. However, this decision will permit only genuine companies to market their products and co-marketing will be permitted subject to conditions, officials maintained.

Accordingly, 93 licenses that were revoked will be given back to the companies, officials said. Previously, the label on the pesticide pack did not properly reveal the contents and name of the manufacturer.