Today (18 July), EU regulations on fertilising products have come into force, making ‘it possible to market more organic and waste-based fertilisers’.

Soil

The updated rules aim to ‘boost the role of the Single Market, help reduce the environmental impact of fertilisers, limit their risk on human health as well as reduce Europe’s dependency on imported fertilisers’.

Included in the regulations is a range of fertilising products, such as liming materials, soil improvers, growing agents, plant bio-stimulants and blends. The Commission says that this is an ‘important step’ towards sustainable agriculture – one of the objectives of the Green Deal.

The Commission originally proposed the new rules for Fertilising Products in 2016, following a call for the revision of existing rules in the 2015 Circular Economy Action Plan. The revised regulation was adopted by the co-legislators on 5 June 2019.

According to the Commission, fertilisers made from organic waste material could replace 30 per cent of mined fertilisers, with today’s legislation seeking to realise this. It also seeks to tackle issues with old fertiliser rules – previously, only ‘conventional, non-organic fertilisers’, typically extracted from mines or produced chemically, could be traded freely across the EU.

Until now, the Commission has said, fertilising products made from organic materials could only access the Single Market based on the principle of mutual recognition between Member States, which is often difficult due to diverging national rules.

As a result, these organic products had a competitive disadvantage, which ‘hampered innovation and investment in the circular economy’.

To deal with this, the new EU rules will:

1. Open the Single Market to organic and waste-based fertilisers: The rules define the conditions under which ‘innovative organic fertilisers’ can be marketed in the Single Market. For instance, they address safety, quality and labelling requirements that companies producing and selling such fertilisers will need to comply with before affixing the CE mark, allowing their products to be freely traded across the EU without additional formalities.
2. Establish limit values for toxic contaminants in fertilising products: The regulation introduces limits for toxic contaminants such as cadmium, mercury, or arsenic. This will contribute to a high level of soil protection and reduce health and environmental risks.
3. Allow optional harmonisation: As fertilising products are sometimes produced locally, producers will remain free to choose whether they want to apply the new EU rules or continue to comply with EU countries’ national rules, in order to place products on the EU market. Companies that wish to apply national rules without affixing the CE-mark will continue to be able to sell their products in other EU countries under the principle of mutual recognition.

The implementation of the regulations will be subject to a three-year transitional period, helping companies adapt their manufacturing processes and comply with the new rules.

The Commission has also issued a guidance document on the labelling of EU fertiliser products, aiming to support businesses with the implementation of new rules.

Based on the findings of its ‘Joint Research Centre’, the Commission has said it will extend the new rules to allow the marketing of additional fertilisers with components out of recovered waste; and adopt accompanying legislation on the safe use of by-products from other industries, such as petrochemical or metal industries, in the production of EU fertilising products.