THE price of paraquat herbicides has jumped by about 70 cents a litre as farmers apply their final knockdown sprays before seeding.
Price increases of anywhere between five and 30 per cent are also expected across the board as Chinese environmental authorities enforce tougher environmental policies on pesticide manufacturers.
Landmark WA merchandise manager Zach Walsh said growers would have already started seeing price increases in paraquat herbicides over the past month.
"This market has been very volatile and proof of how quickly things can change in China with limited warning," he said.
"Prices increased by 70c/l over a month late last year and earlier this year, meaning a significant volume coming to WA was affected by the price rise."
Mr Walsh said despite the price rise he was expecting demand for paraquat to be higher than last season.
"We had a significant double knock last year and sold record volumes of paraquat," he said.
"We expect this year to be larger given growers are likely to use higher rates based on cheaper price than this time last year and excellent results when used at about the two litre per hectare mark."
Mr Walsh said the price for most pesticides had bottomed and were on the way up.
"As a general rule prices have lifted between five and 10pc from the fourth quarter of last year, depending on product but we have seen much bigger jumps on chlorpyrifos, paraquat, alpha cypermethrin and chlorothalonil."
Companies such as Syngenta and Imtrade, which formulate paraquat locally using raw materials or "tech" from China, say the crackdown by Chinese authorities had caused the price rise on paraquat and other pesticides.
Coupled with this is the strong demand for paraquat over the summer months in WA due to wet conditions.
Syngenta head of broadacre marketing Craig Thompson said the company lifted the price of its Spray Seed and Gramoxone herbicides in February.
"It is really a supply, demand and balance situation from the production side, with a little less production capacity in China and the cost of some of the inputs increasing quite significantly," he said
Mr Thompson said paraquat pricing had been at "historic lows" for the past two years and the rise was part of the cyclical nature of the market.
"There has been a pretty strong trend for the first three months of the year and we are coming off a historic low as well so while the increase is relatively significant in percentage terms, it is nowhere near where the prices were two to three years ago," he said.
Imtrade national sales manager Andrew Alexander said the company had seen a 45c/l price rise for paraquat tech in January and a 70c/l increase in February which it "absolutely attributed" to the regulatory pressures on Chinese manufacturers.
Imtrade formulates paraquat products Paraquat 250 and Para-Trooper which contains amitrole and paraquat.
"In the past two months tech prices have increased and this will equate to an increase in on farm purchasing costs and is likely to continue to rise," Mr Alexander said.
"You've got the slowing and stopping of production for a period of time in China which then creates a supply and demand issue but then you've also got the implications of the factories having to upgrade to meet the new guidelines which then has a cost associated with it as well.
"Everyone is being affected."
Mr Alexander said growers would likely see the price rise as they purchased herbicides for their final knockdown spray prior to seeding.
"WA demand has been fairly consistent because you've got the summer weed spraying,'' he said.
"But the key bit is between now and sowing because they will do their last tidying up before they sow, so for those who don't already have their stock this is when they will see that increase," he said.
Mr Alexander said the company was seeing price rises on active ingredients used in the production of fungicides and insecticides.
Prices for fungicide containing chlorothalonil, tebuconazole, epoxiconazole or difenoconazole were expected to rise along with imidacloprid, chlorpyrifos and lambda-cyhalothrin insecticides.
"We held off on purchasing some of these products thinking they would go down but they have risen," he said.
"We don't know where the cap is and how far up they are going to go."
