Licences of 11 dealers of fertiliser and three of pesticide have been cancelled for allegedly marketing spurious and expired pesticide and fertiliser.
Agriculture Extension Director General Muhammad Akram Malik stated this while talking to Business Recorder here on Friday.
He said the sale of spurious pesticides and fertiliser by unscrupulous persons caused enormous losses to the agriculture production and harmed the fertility of the soil.
Criticising the poor performance of the district government in arresting the sale of substandard pesticide and fertiliser, he said the Agriculture Extension had launched a campaign during which over 900 samples had been collected and sent for laboratory test.
Of these, around 100 samples of fertiliser and pesticides were found unfit and cases had been registered against the dealers, who be tried in the court of law, he said.
He said pending the decision of the court, their license had been suspended.
He said the extension services to rationalise the use of pesticide and fertiliser had started integrated pest management to train the growers in judicious use of pesticide and fertilisers.
He further said that so far around 95 agriculture officers and 50 field assistants had been trained in integrated pest management technology to train the farmers to keep their produce within the limits of pesticides residues and their crop cost effective.
He said in future, unauthorised dealers would not be allowed to trade in pesticides and fertiliser and if any unauthorised dealer was found in marketing the pesticides or fertiliser would be brought to book.