Seventy tonnes of illegally imported agrichemicals were seized during a raid on a chemical processing facility in Tainan County, the Ministry of Justice's Investigation Bureau said on Monday.
Bureau personnel conducted the raid in conjunction with Council of Agriculture (COA) staff.
Among the herbicides and pesticides found in the factory in Liouying Township (
The factory is believed to have been in operation for four years, said Chang Yan-wen (
"We know that cyhexatin is extremely dangerous and does not biodegrade quickly," Chang said. "The facility lacked precision-measuring equipment. They did not have the ability to accurately dilute the concentrated chemicals they imported to sell to farmers."
The raid took place in September but was just publicized, said Liu Tien-cheng (劉天成), the division chief in charge of illegal agrichemicals at the Bureau of Animal and Plant Health Inspection and Quarantine.
"We have stepped up our efforts to stamp out the underground agrichemical trade in the past few years," Liu said.
"The Pesticide Management Act [農藥管理法] was amended in July to increase the penalties for those found guilty of dealing in illegal pesticides," he said.
Those found guilty of manufacturing, processing, packaging or transporting illegal pesticides can now be sentenced to between one and seven years in prison and fined up to NT$600,000.
Cyhexatin is an organo-tin compound that has been found to be carcinogenic in animal trials, said Yang Chen-chang (
"There are reports of neurotoxicity and liver toxicity associated with cyhexatin, although it is not conclusive that it actually causes birth defects," Yang said.
Cyhexatin is only moderately toxic, Yang said, but it is very persistent both in the human body and in the environment, leading to fear that its use could lead to damaging build-ups of the chemical.
"It can take a year for the body to metabolize 60 percent of the cyhexatin it has consumed," Yang said.
Fei Wen-chi (
"There are a lot of alternative miticides that are equally efficient," Fei said.
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