1. Policy Study
on
Improving the Quality Of Agricultural
Inputs In Bangladesh
Dr. Zahurul Karim

2. INTRODUCTION
Quality inputs play a vital role in productivity enhancement in agriculture necessary for food
security, employment and economic growth of the land hungry country-Bangladesh
Population : 161 m. ha
Cultivable land : 8.57 m.ha
Per capita available land for cultivation: 0.05 ha.

3. Sectoral GDP Growth Rate

4. Study Methodology
a. Reviewing existing policies, rules, acts and laws governing quality control of agricultural
inputs;
b. Reviewing quality control system and capacity & capability of implementing and
regulatory agencies;
c. Focus group discussions with different stakeholders;
d. Consultation workshops with the policy makers and experts in the relevant sub-sector;
e. Data processing, analysis and interpretation;
f. Draft report preparation and validation; and
g. Final report submission
Study Objectives
a) To identify laps and gaps of the regulatory policies, rules and regulation for quality control
of inputs (Seed, Fertilizers, Pesticides, DOCs, Fish Fingerlings and Fish & Animal Feeds);
b) To assess the strength and weaknesses of the regulatory and quality control agencies of
both public and private sector;
c) To assess sources of adulteration of inputs;
d) To suggests measures for remedial actions; and
e) To suggest policy, rules and regulation reforms as and where necessary.

5. IMPEDIMENTS IN IMPLEMENTATION
FERTILIZER
i) Government of Bangladesh has promulgated a number of acts, rules to increase availability of quality
fertilizers. those rules and acts have some limitations and gaps:
 Fertilizer Act, 2006 and Fertilizer Rules, 2007 provided outline and procedures for fertilizer quality
management and standardization without substantial instruction for quality control, analysis, fertilizer
ingredients and the standard of laboratories.
 MoA fixed specification for major fertilizers through a notification, but not specified limit of the presence
of heavy metal and physical impurity.
 The Fertilizer Management Act, 2006 and subsequent modification of Fertilizer Rules in 2007 provides
some guidelines and procedures for fertilizer quality management and standardization, but not
provided substantial instructions on fertilizer quality analysis, fertilizer ingredients and the standard of
laboratories.
 The amended Fertilizer Rules, 2007, provided some guidelines for fertilizer inspection but method of
inspection and support of portable analytical facilities essential to detect the permissible level of
contamination is not provided.
ii) Six agencies with labs. entitled to analyze both locally produced and imported fertilizer analysis, are
engaged in research & teaching but not mandated for farmers’ sample analysis. Moreover, the
capacity of these Labs, are meager compared to national need. Analysing quality of these labs. are
often questionable indicating poor standardization, non-maintaining of reference sample and poor
cross-checking of analysed data.)

6. IMPEDIMENTS IN IMPLEMENTATION
FERTILIZER (contd.)
Iii Some of the weaknesses of analytical institutions and systems for quality management of
fertilizers are:
 Absence of idependent and analytical laboratory to serve as reference tool for all other
testing laboratories.
 There is no unified analytical methods, procedure and standardization of sampling and
testing, approved by AOAC.
 maintenance of spare-parts is a serious problems, often these are not available for
continious running of the laboratories.
 Laboratory facilities at port of entries have poor infrastructure and limited human resource
and qualified technicians.
 Instead of an inspection committee, fertilizer samples are being collected from the foreign
consignment by unprofessional and lower level staff.
vi) Laws, rules and regulations do not guarantee availability of quality fertilizer in the field
because:
 Field offices are not equipped with required testing devices for rapid determination of
fertilizer quality;
 Absence of qualified field inspectors at Upazila level for effective field inspection.

7. IMPEDIMENTS IN IMPLEMENTATION (Contd)
SEED
i) Seed quality is governed by a plethora of policies, acts and rules in Bangladesh. But due to
some gaps and inconsistencies between policies, acts and rules as well as in competencies of
regulatory agencies, seed quality control is jeopardized and development of private sector is
hampered. These are:
Shortage of Breeder’s seeds affecting quality seed production in Bangladesh. NSP, 1993
offered but Seed Act,2005 restricts private sector to develop new varieties of notified crops and
getting approved from NSB;
Despite NSP prohibition adulterated seeds, seeds without appropriate containers/packages &
labeling without NSB specifications and with fictitious or duplicate label of reputed companies
are found to be sold in the markets;
No seed health standards are specified in the country;
SCA, the public sector regulatory agency is suffering from acute shortage of qualified, and
experienced man power of their own and other physical facilities.
No indication about infrastructure requirement for TLS production in the Seed Rules,1998;

8. IMPEDIMENTS IN IMPLEMENTATION (Contd)
PESTICIDES
i)The entire process of pesticide production, import and trading are done by private sector in
Bangladesh;
ii)Pesticide rules, regulations, and acts promulgated by the government provide basic
framework for the regulation and control of pesticide quality. Though there are sufficient rules
and regulations for the purpose a number of limitations exists for proper implementation of the
regulations. These are as follows:
iii)Mandatory guidelines of FAO for labeling, handling, storage and transportation of pesticides
are not followed in Bangladesh, and pesticides rules have no penalty clause for such misdeeds.
iv)There are insufficient facilities in the private sector for pesticide storage; quality analysis;
v)There is a dearth of laboratory analytical procedure, pre-shipment inspection (PSI) and
labeling.
vi)Recent acts and rules have not specified the punishment/ penalty, disposing procedure of
pesticides found not to conform with required standard.
vii)Most of the pesticides industries in Bangladesh do not maintain a laboratory, if maintain
lack necessary laboratory equipments, technical manpower to ensure its product quality as
per FAO International Code of Conduct.
viii)Post-registration surveillance to ensure that the registered product is properly handled,
distributed and to ensure enforcement and monitoring of the actual use of product is weak
and less credible in Bangladesh.
ix)There is no field testing facilities for pesticide’s residual value analysis in the country; one
small laboratory located at DAE, under the MoA is largely inadequate to support pesticide

9. IMPEDIMENTS IN IMPLEMENTATION (Contd)
FISH& A ANIMAL FEED, DOCs, FISH FINGERLINGS
Fish & Animal Feeds
i)Policy and regulatory system for quality control fish and animal feed in Bangladesh is at
infant stage.
ii)Recently developed policies and regulations are National Poultry Development Policy,
2008; Fish and Animal Feed Act, 2010; Fish Feed Regulations 2011; and Animal Feed
Regulation Act (Draft), 2013.
iii)There are visible gaps inconsistencies in the policy formulation and deficiencies in regulatory
framework for efficient quality control of feeds in Bangladesh.
There is no provision for microbiological control of animal feeds in the Fish and Animal Feed
act, 2010 particularly of salmonella control;
The Fish and animal Feed Act, 2010 listed the reference laboratories but most of the
laboratories have little facilities regarding procedure, guidelines/manual, standard protocols
and efficient man power to accomplish the task, manpower particularly for the determination
of ingredient physical properties and other adulterations.
The Fish and Animal Feed Act, 2010, did not specified laboratories for specic tests.


10. IMPEDIMENTS IN IMPLEMENTATION (Contd)
FISH& A ANIMAL FEED, DOCs, FISH FINGERLINGS (Contd)
Day-Old Chicks
i) National Livestock development policy, 2007 has provided guidelines to supply quality DOCs
without indication of husbandry practices and pathological conditions necessary for breeding
flock for quality chick production.
ii) National livestock policy,2007 also provided no guidelines for handling hatching eggs,
establishing quality chicks.
iii) Poultry Policy does not illustrates the form of physical deviation and detailed lay out or
protocols for disease free DOCs.
iv) Animal Disease Regulations, 2011, has setup conditions for starting grand parent farms,
parent stock farms, and commercial farms so that for disease free DOCs production. However,
the implementation arrangement for quarantine of DOCs is not illustrated in the regulations.
v) There is no provision for guidelines in the poultry development policy for handling and
transportation of DOCs which affects in the mortality rate of DOCs in the rearing farms.
vi) There is no specific indication in the National Poultry Policy regarding bio-security in the
breeding farms and hathery units.

11. KEY FINDINGS AND RECOMMENDATIONS
FERTILIZER
 Specification of the fertilizer materials need to be periodically reviewed through a national
committee.
 It is necessary to re-evaluate maximum limit of heavy metal contamination based on
analytical facilities in different laboratories.
 Quality control for fertilizer requires standardization, analysis of fertilizer materials, field
inspection & monitoring and punishment of unscrupulous traders.
 It is necessary to setup an Independent Accredited Laboratory with adherence of several
field laboratories.
 For inspection and monitoring, a strong national system need to be established to enforce
the implementation of fertilizer Act. 2006. DAE and SRDI should be strengthen to jointly
conduct field inspection and testing.
 The authority of the inspector should be strengthened and simplified removing the existing
complexcity in the Act, 2006.
 The government of Bangladesh should set up Mobile Courts in different regions for
awarding exemplary punishment for unscrupulous traders, manufacturers, importers and
dealers.

12. KEY FINDINGS AND RECOMMENDATIONS
(Contd)
SEEDS
i) to increase national food grain production from existing 32 million tonnes to 35 million
tonnes, the SRR must be raised up to 30 percent through building infrastructure and
capacity improvement of NARS institutes, public and private sector agencies for BS and FS
production.
ii) The existing anomalies between NSP, 1993; the Seed (Amendment) Act, 1997; the Seed
Rules, 1998 and the Seed (Amendment) Act, 2005 for the development and release of new
varieties of notified crops, seed standardization and seed certification must be removed and
updated.
iii) Capability and capacity of SCA should be improved with its own qualified manpower,
requisite infrastructure and physical facilities.
iv) For creating database with dependable information regarding the quantity and quality
of seeds uses by farmers, regular survey similar to “ drill-box” as has been done in other
developed countries should be carried out in Bangladesh.

13. KEY FINDINGS AND RECOMMENDATIONS (Contd)
PESTICIDES
i) Pesticide licensing, registration, trading, monitoring and marketing should be managed and supervised
by an independent agency.
ii) Post registration activities should be strengthened .
iii) Technical materials are either produced locally or imported should conform to the specifications of
FAO or WHO and a valid certificate of analysis must accompany each sale of the technical material.
iii) At port of entry professional team should visit the material and arrange quality evaluation through
well established laboratories at the port.
iv) One national laboratory doing analysis for standardization is highly inadequate. The procedure and
facilities for sampling from the farmer’s field for analyzing the residual value need to be included in
pesticide Rules, 1995 and in the Pesticide Act, 2007.
iv) The inspection and analysis of domestically produced product must be strengthening.
v) Necessary Laws should be introduced by the parliament for awarding punishment for the unscrupulous
traders .
vi) Pesticide rules need to be revised to provide adequate support for toxicological analysis of pesticide
and environmental friendly disposal of harmful materials (by-products etc).
vii) To ensure product quality and specifications through internationally accepted laboratory test methods,
it is necessary to maintain a laboratory with sufficient equipment and efficient manpower.

14. KEY FINDINGS AND RECOMMENDATIONS (Contd)
FISH AND ANIMAL FEEDS, DOCs, AND FISH FINGERLINGS
Fish and Animal Feeds
i) A quality control laboratory need to be established with all sorts of facilities for testing fish and animal
feeds.
ii) Reference laboratories should be specified for specific type of analysis particularly for the identification of
mycotoxins and adulterations presence in animal feeds.
iii) Laboratory tests facilities should be extended to the regional level and ensure farmers’ access to the
tests facilities.
iv) Provisions should be made on the Fish and Animal Feed Act 2010 regarding GMP in the commercial
feed mills, and protocols for GPM should be described in feed regulations.
v) Government needs to set up adequate quality control mechanism for ensuring good quality feed to the
customers.
vi) Necessary Infrastructure facility and manpower need to be developed for quality control of feeds.
DOCs
i) Hatchery Act and Guidelines should be formulated by the government covering quality of hatching,
incubation, handling, transportation of DOCs.
ii) Bio-security and surveillance should be strengthened for quality DOCs production in the country.
iii) Strong institutional support in all phases of development should be ensured and adequate manpower
should be employed where necessary.
Fish Fingerlings
i) Hatchery rule should be supported by an operation manual.
ii) Provisions for water filling and procedures of pond water curing for fingerling production should be
mentioned on hatchery rules.
iii) There needs to develop brood stock bank in the country through Public- Private- Partnership
iv) Government should establish independent quality control body to monitor and test and analysis of feeds

15. THANKS
FOR
PATIENT HEARING