Anti-Counterfeiting Solutions for the Agriculture Industry (Agrochemicals, Fertilizers, and Pesticides)
With the world’s rapidly expanding population and consequent increase in demand for food, the global agrochemical market is projected to reach USD 250.5 billion by 2020. Agrochemicals include pesticides, herbicides, fungicides and insecticides used in agriculture as well as in homes and gardens.
NanoMatriX is at the forefront in fighting the proliferation of counterfeit crop seeds and agrochemicals. To protect farmers, consumers and the environment, NanoMatriX develops and implements anti-counterfeiting technologies to combat fake agrochemicals and illicit trade.
Counterfeit labels and packaging are becoming increasingly sophisticated that consumers can hardly differentiate between genuine and fake products.
This is why NanoMatriX offers modern technologies (Holographic Stickers, QR code, NFC tags, Security Taggants, etc.) to enable quick authentication of agricultural products and deter fraudsters.
Counterfeit fertilizers and crop seeds waste an entire growing season before being discovered and can significantly decrease crop yield. Developing countries are also the most vulnerable to counterfeit agricultural products and smuggled goods.
Counterfeiting & Illicit Trade: Global Threats in the Agriculture Industry
Threats in the agro-chemicals industry come in many forms:
- Counterfeits: sophisticated-looking packaging and labelling imitations which appear identical to original genuine products. These may contain untested impurities or may also contain non-approved active substances or materials. This can pose a risk to human health and the environment.
- Illegal products: Not a copy of an authentic product but may have basic or incomplete labels. These products may or may not contain the ingredients named on the label of the container and their quality may represent real danger to health and environment.
- Illegal parallel trade: These products masquerade as originals that have been purchased in one region and are moved to another to permit legitimate competition. Criminals produce and transport non-original chemicals (pesticides that have never been registered for use in a certain region) and import them into the region; these agrochemicals are placed in new containers as an illegal substitute by unscrupulous parallel traders and sold to farmers as if they were original manufacturer production.
10%
Of the $220-billion agrochemical trade is believed to be illegal (OECD)
$2 Billion Annually
Estimated illegal agrochemical trade in Brazil
Counterfeit agrochemical products pose significant risks to:
- Farmers – their crops and fields can be damaged and their health impacted due to exposure to unknown or banned chemicals
- Consumers – unknown and untested chemicals can enter the food chain.
- The environment – illegal products can contaminate water/soil and can destroy beneficial organisms
Fraudsters are increasingly targeting developing countries with large agricultural economies, weak laws and unmanned borders. Counterfeit and contraband pesticides are flooding developed and developing countries alike with devastating impact to the environment and public safety.
Criminal businesses can make the ‘ideal’ mixture of the illicit pesticides by using plenty of technologies, starting with sophisticated adulterations and blending.
Analysts say tests cannot determine whether produce was grown with counterfeit pesticides.
Illegal agrochemical producers have also bypassed traditional markets by selling their chemicals online. Other counterfeiters fill genuinely labeled bottles with substandard ingredients and then dump the illegal products in the market.
Robust Solutions to Combat Counterfeit Agrochemicals
High-Security Labels
NanoMatriX’s multi-level anti-counterfeit labels with embedded, overt, covert, and forensic features help empower the wellness and cosmetics industry to maintain their product integrity and brand reputation.
The security graphic features are designed through special anti-counterfeiting software to create a non-duplicable image through mathematical algorithms. For example, guilloche, relief, latent, etc. All of these features are created or combined with other security graphic features.
Paper Label with Hologram & Scratch-off with Security Cuts
- Guilloche: Form of two or even more interwoven fine lines to generate specific patterns by mathematical algorithms. The structure of the design is an intricate and repetitive pattern that can prevent any fabrication or duplication.
- Relief: Line patterns with line width modulation, wavy line patterns and which can enhance convex and three-dimensional display effect of graphics.
- Anti-copy: Combination of special line patterns and graphics to form a graphic in split lines. Split lines appear when the magnifying glass is used. The split lines can serve as anti-copy lines, thereby being blurred out when photo-copies are made from the original document.
- Latent image: Hidden patterns or texts. Integration of parallel lines, Guilloche, and patterns as a hidden anti-counterfeiting to covert information. The hidden image or text appeared when observing the image with a specific optical angle.
- Microtext: The tiny texts can only be viewed by a high-resolution microscope. Any reproduction machine is unable to identify and copy the microtext but in dotted or solid line because of downgrading resolution after scanning or photocopying.
High-security Label with Multi-level Security Features
Holographic Label with Tamper Evidence
Smart Holographic Labels
Our hologram brand protection solutions comprise multi-level security holographic labels with overt, covert, and forensic features suited for the cosmetics industry.
Tamper-evident features and security taggants in the holographic security stickers help to ensure that electronics manufacturers identify parallel-trading, counterfeits, warranty return fraud, or production overrun.
Tamper-evident features and security taggants in the holographic security stickers help to ensure that electronics manufacturers identify parallel-trading, counterfeits, warranty return fraud, or production overrun.
Matrix-Mark™ Taggants: Unique Chemical Markers
Also known as a tracer element, a taggant is one of the most versatile anti-counterfeiting technologies on the market. Taggants are the physical or chemical markers added to the material, and they can easily withstand any form of testing.
These taggants are robust inorganic markers that withstand high physical and chemical resistance tests and help in the long-term authentication of even the most fragile packaging. The best part is that these taggants don’t alter the appearance, color, or chemical makeup of the material they are mixed with.
Matrix-Mark™ Taggant possesses strong chemical characteristics that make it a trusted solution to fight product counterfeiting.
These taggants have the following properties:
- For all printing technologies: Offset, rotogravure, flexo, screen, intaglio, inkjet, laser, TTP
- Inorganic: No performance impact by age or exposure to strong UV radiation
- Tough: Sustained pressure even in intaglio printing process
- Chemical resistant: Withstood chemical resistant tests even for banknote use
- Temperature resistant: Melting point above 1000°C
- Small size: 500 nm to 5 micrometer (depending on application)– difficult to detect
- Complex formulation: Extremely difficult to re-engineer
- Involves proprietary well researched methods of forensic detection: Every taggant comes with a unique forensic feature that enables the trace element to be used as evidence in the court of law.
Tax Stamp Management System Interface
Forensic Signature – Laboratory Test Result Illustration
Forensic Feature (Legal enforceable evidence)
We can add to each project-specific taggant production a unique ‘elemental signature’. Elemental signatures can be verified by independent material science laboratories.
Illustration
Note:
- An infinitive number of elemental signatures can be generated.
- An independent laboratory can be contracted to determine whether or not the initial elemental signature can be found on the questionable product.
Product authentication can be readily executed with the help of specialized sensors, imparting product integrity to one’s brand. Furthermore, the optional forensic feature added in the taggants can be legally enforceable evidence, thereby proving the product’s authenticity in a court of law.
Taggant Applications for Agrochemicals:
- Direct incorporation into the packaging (flexo printing, offset, or CIJ for lot and date codes).
- Direct inclusion into the agricultural product itself (fertilizers and pesticides) since the taggants are non-toxic and environmentally safe.
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