At the end of July 2018, the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs (MARA, former name: MOA) issued the "Notice on the Prevention and Control of Major Pests and Diseases of Autumn Grain Crops". It said that according to the monitor of pests and diseases, and affected by recent precipitation and high temperature, the occurrence of major pests and diseases of crops, such as rice, corn and potatoes, would happen severely, posing a greater threat to food production. Therefore the MARA attached great importance to it and required all localities to implement prevention and control measures at an early date and resolutely curb the outbreak of pests and diseases.

On July 11, 2018, Changzhou Municipal Government of Jiangsu Province received a real name report saying that thousands of tonnes of chemical wastes from a pesticide company in Jiangsu were transported to Jintan Shuibei Industrial Park to landfill illegally. Then the Environmental Protection Bureau of Jintan District conducted an investigation.

On 1 August 2018, Bayer Crop Science opened the official corporate store on Taobao.com. Prior to this, Bayer has already run 2 flagship stores on this platform, respectively for the sales of pharmaceuticals and sanitary horticultural pesticides. This new store was named as Bayer Crop Science Official Corporate Store, specifically for the sales of agricultural pesticides.

On 20 July 2018, BASF held a ceremony for the launch of its new wheat seed coating called Heyue in Jinan City, Shandong Province. This is another big movement after the AgCelence corn seed health seminar held by BASF.

In July 2018, the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs (MARA) held a conference about the answers to Suggestions on Promoting Unified Prevention and Control Services by Agricultural Aviation Plant Protection. The following are details.

DowDuPont Inc. (DowDuPont) recently launched a product mix based on Fatuo (法砣), providing a new high-yield combination to help control the key rice insect pests and diseases in Jiangsu Province.

On 26 June, 2018, the Standardization Committee of the China Crop Protection Industry Association (CCPIA) held an initiation meeting about the group formulation of standards for unmanned aerial planes for plant protection in Beijing, on which Li Zhonghua, Secretary-general of the CCPIA was invited for guidance. The meeting was attended by 18 scientific research institutions, colleges and enterprises, all of which have outstanding performance in the field of unmanned aerial planes.

On 28 June, 2018, three companies including Labor Kaifeng Technology Co., Ltd., Jiangsu Subin Bio-agrochemical Co., Ltd. and Jiangsu Henglong Crop Protection Co., Ltd. each obtained a registration of pyraclostrobin technical (TC), and the total number of such registrations in China therefore reached 12 in the first half of 2018 alone.

In June 2018, the Institute for the Control of Agrochemicals, Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs (ICAMA) published the sixth batch of pesticides planned to be approved, according to which 17 spirotetramat products are expected to get their registrations. Obviously, it indicates the upcoming heat of spirotetramat registration in China.

According to the reports by many listed pesticide enterprises, their performance in the first half of 2018 exceeded market expectation. Six companies, namely Jiangsu Yangnong Chemical Co., Ltd., Shenzhen Noposion Agrochemicals Co., Ltd., Lier Chemical Co., Ltd., Jiangsu Changqing Agrochemical Co., Ltd., Limin Chemical Co., Ltd. and Jiangsu Lanfeng Biochemical Co., Ltd. published notices about their predicted performance improvement. Only two including Jiangsu Huifeng Agrochemical Co., Ltd. and Jiangsu Lianhe Chemical Technology Co., Ltd. predicted decreases in performance. In addition, most of those pesticide companies that hadn’t released their pre-reports had estimated growth in their first half year performance in their first-quarter reports.