On the 18th May 2016, China’s “group standard of pesticide QR code encoding rule” was published. The “group standard of pesticide QR code encoding rule” was proposed by China Crop Protection Industry Association (CCPIA), jointly formulated by pesticide industry experts, manufacturers and QR code institutions. The standard specifies features, formats and symbols of pesticide QR code structure, which will apply to the pesticide information exchange and information processing covering pesticide in production, transportation, storage, sales, service and tracking.

After the “group standard of pesticide QR code encoding rule” comes into effect, the QR code system which now begins from the source of production will change the situation where information on traceability is not effective and interface of traceability is not unified.

The “group standard of pesticide QR code encoding rule” takes into account the different needs of different stakeholders. For instance, the code information on level of toxicity gives an easy reading of the information of high-toxic pesticide to enable supervision of high-toxic pesticide; the code information of material/texture allows for reading of pesticide’s minimum packaging information to enable supervision of recovery and disposal of waste package. To cope with fake and poor quality pesticides, the QR code system provides a fast recognition and identification capability. Furthermore, the implementation of this standard will greatly promote the agricultural “internet +” initiative, which will expose all agricultural counterfeits for a better industry regulation.