Jammu and Kashmir Tested More Than 7,400 Pesticide Samples in Two Years, Government Tells Assembly
28 September 2026, Srinagar: The Jammu and Kashmir government has disclosed that it tested more than 7,400 pesticide samples over the past two fiscal years, uncovering 151 substandard products and launching dozens of prosecutions, in a statement to the region’s Legislative Assembly that offers a rare, itemized look at how one Indian state is enforcing quality control on agrochemicals in its fields.
Agriculture Minister Javid Ahmad Dar provided the figures to the Jammu and Kashmir Legislative Assembly on September 24, 2026, in response to a question on pesticide quality enforcement, according to a report by Kashmir Images. The disclosure covers both the completed 2025-26 fiscal year and the current 2026-27 year to date, and details enforcement action taken under India’s Insecticides Act, 1968.
Period
Samples tested
Substandard
Show-cause notices
Licenses cancelled/suspended
Prosecutions
FIRs registered
Fines recovered
2025-26
5,772
85
93
Not specified
52
22
Rs 70,000
2026-27 (to date)
1,658
66
Not specified
19
19
3
Rs 1.33 lakh
The minister said the region currently operates two functional Quality Control Laboratories, one each in Srinagar and Jammu, to test pesticide samples collected from the market, and that the government has banned or restricted 32 highly toxic pesticide formulations in the region. He added that the government is in the process of establishing a dedicated State Pesticide Residue Testing Laboratory, which would allow authorities to test for pesticide residues in produce and soil in addition to verifying the composition of pesticide products themselves.
The figures suggest enforcement intensity has picked up in the current year relative to the last one. In 2026-27 to date, license cancellations or suspensions already stand at 19, a category that was not broken out in the 2025-26 figures provided, while the proportion of tested samples found substandard rose slightly, from about 1.5 percent of samples in 2025-26 to roughly 4 percent so far in 2026-27, though the current year’s sample size is still a fraction of the full-year total.
The disclosure did not name specific companies or brands found to be selling substandard product, and it is a state-level rather than a national dataset, covering only Jammu and Kashmir rather than India as a whole. It follows broader, longstanding concern among Indian farm groups and legitimate agrochemical manufacturers about the prevalence of spurious and substandard pesticides in parts of the Indian market, a problem that industry bodies have repeatedly flagged as undermining both farmer trust and the commercial position of compliant, branded manufacturers.
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