Colombia supervises agrochemical prices

Colombia is supervising the price of certain pesticides. The Ministry of Agriculture passed Resolutions 302 and 309 in December last year, creating a regime of -supervised freedom" in price-setting of certain pesticide and fertiliser products for agricultural use. Agrochemical distributors, importers and producers will be free to set prices for their products on condition that they inform the Ministry of price data and reasons for any changes every three months.

The Ministry will determine whether to intervene in the market, based on the data it receives. Resolution 302 allows the Ministry to establish maximum prices through a formula that -integrates the necessary criteria to determine such a price".

Among the pesticides under supervision are those based on the following active ingredients: the herbicides, glyphosate, glufosinate-ammonium, atrazine, mesosulfuron-methyl and picloram; the fungicides, azoxystrobin, carbendazim, mancozeb, tebuconazole and trifloxystrobin; and the insecticides, abamectin, aldicarb, imidacloprid, methamidiphos and spinosad.

Only distributors among the three supervised agents in the product chain were required to inform the Ministry of price movements up to February 20th this year, since when all three have had to follow the policy. Failure to comply will indicate restrictive practices, the Resolutions state. The Ministry could extend the provisions in the regulations to other agents in the product chain, Resolution 309 adds.