Volcanic rock fertiliser firm under scrutiny

A company selling ground volcanic rock as fertiliser is being investigated by the Commerce Commission under the Fair Trading Act.

Agrissentials, owned by former Tauranga vegetable grower John Morris, sells its Rok Solid fertiliser for $400 a tonne to farmers throughout New Zealand.

Its main ingredient is ground basalt rock to which is added fish, seaweed and other sources of phosphate, potassium, selenium, cobalt and boron.

Not any rock will do, according to Morris. ‘‘Before we mine it we analyse the paramagnetic energy level. This stimulates the multiplication of the soil biology.’’

Commerce Commission spokeswoman Allanah Kalafatelis said an investigation was started earlier this year after a complaint was received from a user of the fertiliser.

‘‘We don’t expect it to be a short investigation because of the science involved. There’s a small number of experts we can go to,’’ she said.

Morris said the commission had written to him in January, saying it was following up comments about the fertiliser made in a newspaper article.

He had asked who had complained but the commission would not give any names.

‘‘They told me it was not one of the two big fertiliser companies. I think it was probably my old friend Doug Edmeades.’’

Edmeades, a Waikato soil scientist who has publicly accused Agrissentials of using ‘‘scare tactics’’ to promote its products, said he was not the complainant and was not involved in the investigation.

He has said in a newsletter to his clients that because Rok Solid’s chief component was silica it was unlikely to have any effect on pastoral soils. He put its value, after allowing for the added nutrients, at $60 a tonne, assuming they are plant-available.

Morris said he started Agrissentials 18 years ago after finding his conventionally fertilised plants were not growing to their potential. ‘‘I looked for where the best soils were on the planet and found they were where the ice glaciers had rubbed the rock, leaving metres of dust behind.

‘‘I felt I couldn’t go wrong doing what Mother Nature had done for millions of years.’’

His website has a report from Northland soil scientist Andreas Kumann on soil tests from dairy farms using Rok Solid. The site also features botanist David Bellamy talking about farmers who are returning to the ‘‘essentials’’ of agriculture.

Morris said he felt confident the Commerce Commission would find he was not doing anything wrong.