Excerpt from: “Pesticide Science and Management” Issue 12, 2022

Author: Lu Jianjun

With the popularization of e-commerce and the Internet in rural areas, the improvement of farmers’ education level, and the impact of the new crown epidemic, the lifestyle of “letting information travel more and the body less travel” has become the pursuit of farmers today. In this context, the market space of the traditional, multi-level offline wholesale operation mode of pesticides is gradually being compressed, while the Internet operation of pesticides is showing vitality, and the market space continues to expand, becoming a dynamic format. However, the supervision of the Internet operation of pesticides has not been strengthened at the same time, and some links even have supervision deficiencies. If no effective response is taken, it will not only be detrimental to the healthy development of this industry, but will even be harmful to agricultural production, farmers’ income, human and animal and environmental safety, etc. Have a negative impact.

Current status of pesticide Internet operation

my country’s relevant laws stipulate that Article 2 of the “E-Commerce Law of the People’s Republic of China” stipulates that e-commerce activities within the territory of the People’s Republic of China shall abide by this law. E-commerce refers to the business activities of selling goods or providing services through information networks such as the Internet. Using the Internet to carry out pesticide business activities belongs to the category of e-commerce. Therefore, pesticide Internet operators should register as market entities in accordance with the “E-Commerce Law of the People’s Republic of China”, and their business operations should meet the relevant requirements. Where business activities fail to perform contractual obligations, or cause damage to others, or fail to publish business license information, administrative license information, and other information in a prominent position on the homepage, they shall bear legal responsibility. Article 21 of the “Administrative Measures for Pesticide Business Licensing” stipulates that restricted-use pesticides shall not be operated through the Internet, and a pesticide business license shall be obtained for the use of the Internet to operate other pesticides.

The status quo of my country’s pesticide Internet operation The Internet pesticide operation generally uses third-party e-commerce platforms, one is traditional e-commerce platforms, also known as search e-commerce, such as Taobao, JD.com, Pinduoduo, etc.; the other is new e-commerce platforms, Also known as interest e-commerce, such as Douyin, Kuaishou, etc. Competent operators can also build their own Internet marketing platforms. For example, Huifeng Co., Ltd. and China Pesticide Development and Application Association have operated the “Nongyiwang” e-commerce platform. At present, Taobao.com is the largest e-commerce platform for pesticide business, with more than 11,000 e-commerce companies dealing in pesticides, covering nearly 4,200 pesticide varieties registered in my country. Feixiang Agricultural Materials is the e-commerce company with the largest scale of pesticide operations among the traditional e-commerce platforms. Its sales, number of visitors, number of searchers, payment conversion rate and other indicators have ranked first for three consecutive years. Records of more than 10,000 yuan. “Nongyiwang” adopts a three-level model of “platform + county workstation + rural purchasing agent”, and cooperates with the top 200 well-known manufacturers in the industry to ensure product quality and jointly strengthen brand advantages. Since its launch in November 2014, it has developed more than 800 county-level workstations, registered more than 50,000 purchasing agents, and accumulated sales of more than 1 billion yuan. The service area covers 70% of the domestic agricultural planting areas and is tens of millions. Farmers provide high-quality and low-priced agricultural materials.

Problems in Pesticide Internet Operations

It is difficult for farmers to protect their rights. Buying pesticides through the Internet is different from buying pesticides in physical stores. Pesticide buyers and operators generally do not meet, and once quality disputes arise, they cannot communicate face to face. At the same time, farmers will not ask merchants for invoices if they think it is generally troublesome, resulting in no direct basis for pesticide transactions. In addition, farmers believe that rights protection is time-consuming and labor-intensive, and some farmers think they have suffered a loss and are deceived and bear the loss. The above reasons lead to the lack of awareness of farmers’ rights protection and the lack of ability to protect their rights. Especially after crop injury accidents, because farmers do not understand the relevant laws and regulations, instead of reporting to the competent agricultural and rural authorities in a timely manner, fixing evidence, recording the symptoms of injury, and organizing injury identification, they complained everywhere by themselves, and missed the record of injury. The best period of time leads to the disappearance of evidence, which ultimately makes it difficult to defend rights.

The pass rate of pesticides is low. On the one hand, agricultural and rural authorities mainly focus on the supervision of offline business entities in the pesticide market, lack of experience in e-commerce supervision, coupled with factors such as the large time and space span of network operations, and the difficulty of investigation and evidence collection. Weak. In particular, platforms such as Douyin and Kuaishou, and related merchants push products point-to-point according to farmers’ planting conditions and drug use characteristics. The regulatory authorities have no access to product information, so they cannot implement fine-grained supervision. On the other hand, some farmers only pay attention to the efficacy of label promotion, and think that the wider the control spectrum of the product, the better, the less the dosage of the drug, the better, and the bigger and more “foreign” the company name is, the more powerful the company will be. Due to its erroneous judgment, counterfeit and inferior pesticides have gained a certain living space, and the diversified online sales of pesticides will inevitably be misleading, and it is difficult to distinguish good from bad.

Pesticide online business access system needs to be established. On the one hand, there is no specific supervision method for online pesticide business. There are various forms of network business. Currently, the mainstream pesticide e-commerce forms include platform type and self-operated store type, which can rely on third-party e-commerce platforms , You can also build your own website, WeChat, QQ, Weibo and other sales, all kinds. On the other hand, the supervision and follow-up of the advertisements released by Internet operators is not timely. Some video advertisements, text advertisements, and audio advertisements are released directly without review by the competent agricultural and rural authorities. It is difficult to guarantee the legitimacy of the business entities and products. Therefore, it is necessary to regulate from the source and standardize a strict access system, which is conducive to the healthy and sustainable development of pesticide e-commerce.

It is difficult to scientifically recommend pesticides. Article 20 of the “Administrative Measures for Pesticide Business Licensing” stipulates that pesticide dealers should ask buyers about the occurrence of pests and diseases, and when necessary, check the occurrence of pests and diseases on the spot, recommend pesticides scientifically, and must not mislead consumers. Now the pesticides are sold online, which simplifies the service process. Most of them are buyers and sellers. It is difficult for operators to ask buyers, check the occurrence of diseases and insect pests on the spot, and scientifically recommend pesticides. What’s more, taking advantage of the weak supervision of pesticides in the network, recommending pesticides that exceed the range and concentration. For example, some pesticide network operators regard avermectin as a universal pesticide adjuvant. Ideally, just recommend adding abamectin at will.

Countermeasures to standardize the Internet management of pesticides

To amend the Regulations on Pesticide Management, the first is to clarify the definition of pesticides operated on the Internet. Any use of e-commerce platforms, short video platforms, WeChat and other electronic networks and information technologies for point-to-point or point-to-multiple promotion and sales of pesticides falls within the category of Internet pesticide business. The second is to strengthen business qualification and behavior management. To operate pesticides on the Internet, one should obtain a pesticide business license, implement the procurement and sales ledger system, and truthfully record supply information, identity documents of purchasers, and pesticide-applied crops. The third is to clarify that the text, pictures, audio and other information related to the quality and use of pesticides released by Internet pesticide operators belong to the category of pesticide advertisements, and their content must be approved by the competent agricultural and rural authorities.

Establish a record system for pesticide Internet operation On the one hand, when the agricultural and rural authorities are applying for a pesticide operation license or applying for a renewal of the operation license, they must conduct investigations on the operators and record the pesticide Internet operators. Pesticide varieties, pictures, texts, videos and other information published online. The second is to adjust the information recorded in the pesticide business license and increase the platform information for online pesticide business. The third is to carry out the filing of pesticide varieties operated on the Internet. The varieties operated on the Internet must be approved by the competent agricultural and rural authorities for registration, production licenses, labels and other information before they can be sold online.

Strengthen supervision and law enforcement. The agricultural department, together with market supervision, public security, and postal services, launched a special rectification campaign for pesticide Internet operations. The first is to focus on eliminating unqualified pesticide dealers and severely crack down on sales of banned and restricted pesticides. The second is the linkage of online and offline supervision, carrying out key quality spot checks on varieties whose use effect is significantly higher than that of similar products and whose price is significantly lower than similar products, and counterfeit and inferior pesticides are investigated and dealt with in accordance with the law. The third is to carry out inspections of business operations, especially to crack down on the behavior of recommending the use of pesticides that exceed the scope of application, concentration, and frequency of use in accordance with the law. Order non-standard e-commerce platforms and Internet pesticide operators to make corrections within a time limit, and investigate and deal with operators who do not make corrections or do not meet the requirements after rectification.

Do a good job in publicity and training. First, based on the “E-Commerce Law of the People’s Republic of China”, “Advertising Law of the People’s Republic of China”, “Pesticide Management Regulations”, “Pesticide Business Licensing Management Measures”, etc., focus on publicity and training on the qualification conditions and code of conduct for Internet pesticide business , purchase inspection, pest control technology, pesticide advertising management, etc. The second is to train farmers on the identification methods of counterfeit and inferior pesticides, the scientific and rational use of pesticides and other knowledge, so that farmers can develop the habit of asking for purchase receipts when purchasing pesticides, and reporting pesticide use accidents to the local agricultural authorities in a timely manner, so as to strengthen their awareness of rights protection and improve rights protection ability.

Source: “Pesticide Science and Management” Issue 12, 2022