Specific Details
EU Availability and Affordability of Fertilisers - COPA Amendments
Intended results
To highlight that IFA supports seeking alternative sources of funding outside the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) to develop relevant measures to ensure the availability of fertilisers in the European Union (EU), or to alleviate the economic impact of this fertiliser deficit.
- Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) funding has already been allocated by the Member States. The financial situation is extremely variable between the Member States. European Farmers must be treated in a fair manner and the single market for agricultural commodities must be preserved.
New 6ter Recognises and gives differential support to the role played by agri-food cooperatives, due to their logistical, organisational and economic capacity to promote local fertiliser manufacturing projects, both from livestock and green fertilisers.
New 6 quarter Encourages Member States to promote organic fertilisation, e.g. by developing specific eco-schemes in the forthcoming reviews of the CAP Strategic Plans in line with their swot analysis.
New 6 quinquies Supports the deployment of digital DST (Decision Support Tools) for precision fertilisation advice, including FAST (Farm New 6 quinquies Supports the deployment of digital DST (Decision Support Tools) for precision fertilisation advice, including FAST (Farm Sustainability Tool) type tools, especially in collective and cooperative settings to overcome the limitation of small farm size.
New 6 quinquies Reminds Member States of the possibility to develop, in the framework of their CAP Strategic Plan, sectoral interventions in the other sectors chapter, which may include measures to stimulate the development of alternatives to mineral fertilization, to support joint and cooperative approaches to shortage scenarios, to apply innovation and technology to reduce fertiliser use, etc.
8. Regrets the fact that the communication does not serve to facilitate the use of RENURE (‘REcovered Nitrogen from manURE') and calls for Annex III to the Nitrates Directive to be amended to this end, while continuing to uphold the principles of efficiency and safety, taking into account the JRC Technical proposals for the safe use of processed manure above the threshold established for Nitrate Vulnerable Zones by the Nitrates Directive (91/676/EEC);
- Justification In addition to RENURE to replace chemical fertilisers, all the possible alternatives, should be used to enhance the circularity principle. The technical proposals made by the JRC in 2020 (following the EC request to publish the study), which are not in place yet, would allow farmers to apply manure safely and to safely exceed the 170 kg nitrogen threshold from livestock manure in nitrate-vulnerable areas.
New 8 bis Calls on the Commission on the need to use the digestate by eliminating the threshold of 170 kg of nitrogen per hectare and per year, in order to reduce the use of chemical fertilisers.
- Justification Today farmers are restricted in use of important by-product of livestock and organic waste of great impact the digestate. Numerous scientific studies show that a significant amount of ammoniacal nitrogen is also present in the digestate –unlike zootechnical effluents – which allows the replacement of the chemical fertiliser, since it can be readily used by the crops.
- Digestate is a very effective tool, which allows a sustainable fertilization supplying macro, meso and micro elements, while ensuring at the same time the maintenance of chemical, physical and biological fertility of the soil (stabilized organic matter), as scientific research already shown.
- In this context, the digestate becomes an indispensable farming input and will play a key role inhelping the sustainable management of livestock farms as it allows to "close the production cycle", reusing waste products while capturing carbon and reducing greenhouse gas emissions.
- It is also necessary to carefully consider the nitrogen fertilization of soils in order to maximize the nitrogen available to plants and thus minimize the risk of nitrogen leaching and loss to groundwater.
- Several studies have shown that digestate, if used according to virtuous criteria, for its chemical and biological characteristics, is less impacting that synthetic chemical fertilizers, with reference to atmospheric emissions of ammonia and nitrous oxide and leaching of nitrates and that the spread of its use would lead to a clear reduction in the impact due to fertilization in agriculture
New 9 bis. Calls on the Commission and the Council to improve the functioning of the European market for fertilisers by reducing its logistic bottlenecks, especially on imports, reducing the administrative burden on fertiliser imports and trade and facilitating off-season purchases and storage by distributors and farmers.
- The price that European farmers pay for nitrogen fertiliser higher than the price paid worldwide, which highly impact their competitiveness. Removing import duties on all fertilisers should develop competition and bring EU prices in par with the rest of the world. However, the current crisis has also shown that the functioning of the market should be improved by removing logistic bottlenecks, especially on imports, easing regulations and facilitating off-season purchases and storage.
New 9ter Calls on the Commission to assess the possibility to set rules for establishing a joint purchases of fertilizers' mechanism at EU level.
- As another feasible short-term measure to be adopted, setting rules for joint and centralized purchases of fertilizers at EU level, in a similar way as it was done with joint purchases of gas, would soften the pressure on the raising of fertilizers' prices.
11. Stresses the need to accelerate the process of increasing the sustainability and resilience of the nitrogen fertiliser industry by using renewable energies and recycled nutrients to produce fertilisers; in this regard, calls on the Commission to make new proposals to boost the deployment of small and medium scale biogas/biomethane plants to produce fertilisers and energy all over Europe
With a strategic regional focus, in order to support farmers to create a sustainable EU value chain which will lessen EU's dependency from third countries. The increase of anaerobic digestion plants in agriculture, whose main strategic purpose is the production of biomethane and digestate, will not have to take place at the expense of CAP funding;
- Gas is still needed and will not be replaceable by other renewable for its features in the next decade. Therefore, it is necessary to think creatively and involve farmers in the energy production and biofertilizer like digestates, provided by a network of small and medium anaerobic digestors, which could work in synergy at regional level. The funding of this measure must come from other sources but CAP, for instance from the EU Innovation Fund.
New 19 bis calls on the Commission to propose measures in other policies and develop instruments to mitigate the impact of the CBAM on the fertilizer costs in the EU.
- CBAM will apply to fertilisers but not to agricultural products. It will take effect gradually over 9 years from 2026 to 2034. In 2034, European fertiliser production will pay 100% of its CO2 emission certificates at market price (it has free allowances for the moment to protect its competitiveness), and fertiliser imports will pay a tax of the same amount, unless they come from countries where they are already subject to a carbon tax.
- This new tax on European and imported fertilisers will increase the price of fertilisers on the European market, in a magnitude likely to be even greater than the effect of the current import tariffs. At the same time, the price of agricultural products, which are not within the scope of the CBAM, will not be higher and carbon leakage will not be prevented in agriculture
New 19 ter Advocates that revenues from the application of the border carbon adjustment mechanism to fertiliser imports into the EU should be used to support the agricultural sector, which is directly affected by the increase in fertiliser prices on the international market, and the efforts to meet the regulatory requirements of the farm-to-fork strategy.
For example, such revenues could be used to support the generation of carbon certificates in the framework of carbon farming, to incentivise the use of livestock-based biofertilisers and the development of their associated industry, etc.
New 19 quarter Urges the Commission to carry out a study on production and food security that restricting the use of fertilisers could have in the short term, without having viable commercial alternatives for European farmers.
To gain support from Irish MEP's for improved availability of fertilisers.
Barry Andrews
MEP (European Parliament)
Billy Kelleher
MEP (European Parliament)
Chris MacManus
MEP (European Parliament)
Ciarán Cuffe
MEP (European Parliament)
Clare Daly
MEP (European Parliament)
Colm Markey
MEP (European Parliament)
Deirdre Clune
MEP (European Parliament)
Frances Fitzgerald
MEP (European Parliament)
Grace O'Sullivan
MEP (European Parliament)
Luke Ming Flanagan
MEP (European Parliament)
Maria Walsh
MEP (European Parliament)
Mick Wallace
MEP (European Parliament)
Sean Kelly
MEP (European Parliament)