Mango growers now need license to buy potassium nitrate

By Leilanie G. Adriano

Staff reporter

LAOAG CITY—Owing to occurrence of bombing incidents and terrorist threats around the country, the government now requires licenses to purchase potassium nitrate.

This development affects mango growers as the said chemical is important to induce more flowers for mango trees.

Potassium nitrate, however, is an active ingredient in manufacturing improvised explosive devices (IEDs); thus, the license requirement to ensure that the chemical will not land in terrorists’ hands.

Previously, anyone can buy potassium nitrate or even calcium nitrate in farm supply stores. This, however, is no longer the case as the Philippine National Police started regulating the sale of the said chemicals.

Even the chemicals’ sellers need to secure their own permits to sell them.

Appropriate charges and penalties await violators of this regulation, the police said. They added that the legal charges will be “non-bailable.

In view of this, Ricardo Tolentino, president of the mango growers’ association in this northern part of Luzon said they made an appeal to local authorities here if they could secure a license as an association to avoid adding more burden to individual farmers.

Mr. Tolentino said mango growers here have become dependent on using potassium nitrate in their mango plantations as it is more convenient for them to use instead of the traditional “smoking” technique which take about 25 days to induce the flowers of mango trees.

“In Ilocos Norte, I am the only one yet who have secured a license from [Camp] Crame [PNP national headquarters]. Only the members of our association can avail of it subject to monthly audit and monitoring from the PNP,” said Mr. Tolentino.

The Ilocos region covering Ilocos Norte, Ilocos Sur, La Union and Pangasinan is one of the country’s major exporters of quality mangoes to Hongkong, Japan and other neighboring Southeast Asian nations. Hence, regulating the use of potassium nitrate may affect the mango industry, he said citing mango growers here are still recovering from previous losses due to typhoon and infestation of fruit flies.